EVE New Citizens Q&A

You made a buy order instead of actually buying it. Escrow just means money set aside to buy stuff. You should see it if you look under Market > My Orders and if you cancel the order you'll get the money back from Escrow (minus a small fee).

I have seen the transaction where you said it was last night. I do want the items even if I have the money escrowed. What do I do to get them. I don't care much about canceling the buy order. I just want to learn what I did and what I can do about it. Its not thw money or the items really its I want to learn.

Two ways to buy items.

1. Buy it immediately from a sell order
2. Set up a buy order and wait for it to be filled by someone. Your money goes in to escrow so you can't access it unless you cancel the buy order.

When you set up a buy order, the money you will have to pay is taken from your wallet and set aside. This is the escrow. If someone fills the order, they get that money. If noone does, you get them back, minus a fee, as stated. This is less obvious when buying single items, more so when setting up large orders for something that trickles in, like ore or minerals.

Basically, you have to wait for someone to see your order and want the money you're offering, and then fill it.

*Edit: Slow typer strikes again. You've got it.

I type way to much, way to slowly, but gonna post anyway
OK, mini market guide:

In EVE, the market is broker based, similar to a RL stock market.
What that means is that you can place sell and buy orders. (Most other games only have "sell orders".)

When you place a buy order, you are announcing that you are willing to buy an item for a certain price. The game will then first check whether there is already someone who is willing to sell at that price - if yes, you get the item immediately. If not, your buy order will be listed on the market. The money for the buy will be collected right away as an escrow, to pay a seller when someone decides to sell at that price. There's no guarantee that there will be a seller. If the price is too low or the item too rare, no seller might show up and the buy order will expire after the selected amount of time. The game will charge you a brokerage fee for this service.

Similarly, when you place a sell order, you announce that you are willing to sell an item for a certain price. Again, if there's already a buy order for that price or higher, the item will be sold immediately. If not, the item will appear on the market. The item will be removed from your storage right away. There's no guarantee that there will be a buyer. If the price is too high or the item too useless, no buyer might show up and the sell order will expire after the selected amount of time. The game will charge you a brokerage fee for this service.

If you select 'Immediate' as the duration, you tell the game that you don't want to place an order, but only to buy from / sell to an existing sell / buy order. In this case, you don't have to pay any brokerage fee and the transaction is either immediate or it fails (if no sell/buy order exists for your price).

The advantage of placing an order is that you chose your price. Often, you can get items cheaper / sell them for more if you do that, than if you accept the price someone else is offering.

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Now, what might have happened to you that created a buy order instead of an immediate buy?
- Someone might have bought the item while you were looking at the buy interface, so that no item at that price was still available.
- You manually lowered the price
- You changed the station

To avoid these, make sure that the duration is set to 'immediate' if you want an immediate buy. If you are using the simple buy dialogue (which does not show the duration), it's always 'immediate'.

As far as I know it really only depends on whether or not the duration is set to 'immediate'.