Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In Eve, the virtual nature of the experience prohibits most of the "or else" type of behaviors that go along with various business agreements in the real world. There are no courts, no police for contracts, etc. Retribution for any attack, broken agreement, or swindle is limited to placing a bounty or personal vengeance for the most part. Certain business arrangements like personal loans are rare or limited because of this. While this fits Eve's "cold, cold universe" ethos, it also limits business opportunities. I propose putting a basic mechanic for retribution or enforced repayment into Eve in a manner that augments the existing contract mechanism: Liens.

A Lien on an item would work like this in a simple example:

An alternative use for an item Lien is as a way to buy a ship to use to make ISK. Corporations could purchase and fit out mining barges, then offer them to new players (with the appropriate skills) in contracts. An example:

Both parties benefit from a successful contract because N gets a barge more quickly than otherwise possible in exchange for mining time. C gets considerably more Veldspar than they would get by purchasing it for the cash price of the barge and additionally gets it more quickly than having corp members mine it because N will wish to clear the loan rapidly. It goes without saying that it is in the interest of C to protect the system (and therefore the ships and ore) where mining is taking place from roaming groups of gankers, which is another benefit to new players because they have a chance to earn ships with little risk in exchange for their time.

Other uses of contract Liens are apparent because having a way to "punish" a player who breaks a contract will enable many types of otherwise risky business exchanges in New Eden. Trial contracts for new corp members would avoid some AWOXing for risk-averse corps, for example. Manufacturing of any item for sale can be bespoke, with the item being produced under contract within a set time. This would increase availability of many hard to find items because not having to keep an inventory reduces vendor overhead costs.

Credit reports: As a corollary to the Lien functionality, I propose that each Lien leave a "paper trail" showing the basics, including value of the contract, successful completion or not, parties involved, etc. The trail of completed contracts would form a "Credit history" for a player, allowing potential business partners to assess risk in a contract. This would prevent many problems with disposable characters or accounts being used to scam ships and items out of sellers.


Dev requirements: From the outside looking in I would think that implementation of this mechanism should theoretically be possible because similar things are already done in the current Eve code. Contracts exist and permit item and ISK exchange. Flags exist that permit/deny players the use of wormholes or gates, and players ability to use an escrowed item for anything could be limited by an optional flag attached to the item (read as: permanent db storage of flags is not needed, only a table listing flags that do exist). The existing tutorial missions system permits a similar "checklist" of items to complete before a contract is fulfilled.

TL,DR; Give players in Eve the ability to mark items and ships as collateral and set flags limiting use until the contract is completed. Allow the parties to the contract to set conditions for the contract to be completed/failed, including ISK payments or item/ore exchange over time. A failed contract would deliver the item so marked from one contract party to the other. This would provide negative consequences to breaking contracts in New Eden that players would obey and therefore provide many business opportunities that would otherwise be ridiculously risky while also providing options for players who don't want to bootstrap their way up the economy.

A loan-collateral contract system used to exist in EVE. It was removed due to lack of use (because why take out a loan with your ships as collateral when you can just sell the ships and get the ISK directly?) and what times this contract type was used, it was for scamming.

With regards to the rest of it... you on one hand say that "EVE is a cold, dark, and harsh universe and that is fine" but then you go on to say "let's create more safety mechanisms to ensure that people can't be cold, dark, and harsh."

Trust is a prized commodity on EVE simply BECAUSE it is not enforced or regulated.

Not supported.

A seems ok. B no be cuz what happens if the ship is gank


Also no cuz that adds yet another feature when CCP has to focus on fixing what we have and solving the horrible legacy code they are using.

+1 well thought out and written
-1 not needed or wanted

OMG next thing will be suggested that Eve has a lawyer profession. Well, I already know of one, and that's one too many for Eve.

Loans should have been attached to kill rights. Didn't pay your bill? I'm burning down your POS network (I know that's not how kill right s work but they should).