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Well yes.. my point was that IF you refine it is still possible to get almost identical outputs as before. You are correct though the sale of compressed ores will soon outstrip refined.

i think someone forgot to post on their npc corp alt

there's no problem with information regarding officer mods, contracts or trading. it doesn't matter if something is used to mislead, it matters if the game itself offers poor information.

margin trading scams are based on a player's poor understanding of the market, which is not intuitive, and definitely does need to be explained better in-client. of course, once the information is made reasonably accessible (the evelopedia is not reasonably accessible imo), there's no reason to remove margin trading scams or margin trading

CCP has actually said they don't like the margin trading scam being possible, they just don't have good ideas to fix it.

Your Right.

i hold in my hand a complete list of everyone who has ever trained a jump freighter bpo even a single level

you may notice that there's no paper in my hand but I assure you that I have that list

Have you EVER worked on SEO? Does not seem so.

If someone bought such a BPC - he/she should have done the research -- which would take all of 30 seconds to 2 minutes to do - to see that the comparison between those BPCs was basically nil. I am fairly new to industry - have one alt pretty much dedicated to manufacturing and mining to get the mins to do the production. But with every group of BPCs I chose to purchase - was to first look and see if the BPC made sense.

I have yet to research a BPO or make copies of BPs - but I can say this --- I have taken a huge loss on the BPCs I have.

This "improvement" has practically tripled the amount of time it takes to produce - and that only because I have TE at 5 - and the amount of materials to produce has drastically increased - only offset by my having ME at 5. Then take the fact that I had refining maxed out - due to a combination of skills for the various ores, refine and refinery efficiency - AND closing the last little bit to achieve 100% refine and 0% tax by running missions for the NPC corp to achieve a standing in excess of +6.5 -- only to now receive 67% refine -- a loss of 33%.

And this is improvement? How. This mathematician - who has taught math to both adults and high school students - sure doesn't see the benefit.

Thanks I will check that out on my alt that does the refine. Worst case scenario is that it will give me better refine than now. Will also have to check to see the ore/mineral refine results and compare them. I do hope you are correct - and if proven correct - I will gladly post a retraction - as it would give a real value then to the implant which prior had no real value.

To say that CCP “don't like the margin trading scam being possible, they just don't have good ideas to fix it” is really an insult to the intelligence of the CCP team. Of course, it is a given that most software programmers are not market experts. It is also a given that most gamers are not market experts. But, that stated – there is at least one (and probably more than one) expert in marketing and economics on the CCP team. [Based on the one CCP speaker who spoke at Evefest and was recorded as giving his credentials as an economist.]

There are several ways to address the Margin Trade Scam. Two of them are fairly easy. Two other ways that I will suggest below would require more thought and time in the software code development.

1. Eliminate both the Margin Trade skill and game mechanic. Give SP to each character that has trained the skill equal to the number of SP the skill/level required of the character to train it. The SP could then be invested in other skills by those characters. This would create momentary pain for those who used this skill – both those who used it legitimately and those who used it to scam. But the ability to ever scam again using this game mechanic would be ended.

2. Eliminate 0 ISK escrow and charge a percentage of the total buy order with the percentage being paid to the seller. No exchange of product. This would not eliminate the scam, but would give a minor recompense to the person scammed. Set this percentage within a range of 5 – 10 percent of the order.

3. Flesh out the Margin Trade game mechanic to more closely resemble out-of-game market mechanics (e.g. real-world conditions). Game mechanic would result in the product being held in abeyance until all funds are paid to the seller. At that time, the buyer receives the product. In the meantime as the buyer earns ISK (from whatever source) it is paid directly into the sellers wallet. A set period of time could be established for completion. Since the mechanics are already in place for time delay (PI, manufacturing, contracts) apply the same time mechanics to the Margin Trade. At the end of that period – a period determined by CCP (24 hours, 96 hours, 14 days, etc.) if the Buyer has not completed payment, the seller keeps all ISK from the sale and all of the product.

The advantage in this mechanic is that it enables the seller to know (s)he will not lose on the transaction while also enabling the legitimate usage of the Margin Trade mechanics for those situations were a buyer is suddenly caught without the ISK to cover the buy. At the same time, scammers would be held totally accountable for trying to run a market scam with this mechanic. It would effectively end scams.

This 3rd option, is the one that most closely resembles real-world markets.

4. Eliminate the 0 ISK escrow. If the trade immediately fails due to insufficient funds in the buyer’s wallet, all ISK in the wallet and all ISK in the escrow is paid to the seller in increments that match the per unit price posted in the buy order. The buyer then receives that number of items as the available ISK can purchase. This is a variation of option 2 above, whereby the scammer is now in possession of overpriced merchandise and out the ISK to buy those items at the price set in the buy order. While it would not totally eliminate the scam it would make it far less palatable than a token percentage loss.

Of course I don’t really expect any of these suggestions to be acted upon by CCP as many in the CSM would suffer to one degree or another if they were implemented. By this statement, I do not imply that any of the CSM actively support or participate in such scams but some of them are in corporations/alliances where one or more members do actively participate in such scams.