Player Features and Ideas Discussion

While bickering with people about the way mining is done and how boring it is I had a thought, one of the reasons it takes so long to get anywhere in EVE is because of the ISK prices and being someone who studies the economy a lot I'm seeing a lot of parallels between ISK and other currencies like countries in Zimbabwe or Vietnam where you have to work lots of hours for an amount that isn't actually worth very much.

Why not try crashing the currency? And I'm talking defaulting on it and creating an entirely new currency so that everyone starts over again and prices are much lower? Not only that, if I were to take over entirely I'd have a specific amount of the currency capped so you could just put 1,000,000,000,000,000 or something like that so that the currency maintains it's value according to the amount of players there are and yes I think that mission agents should run out of money and perhaps maybe offer you more in faction points instead or something for showing your loyalty to them.

The problem is with EVE as it stands now is that the game creates money out of thin air without any limit so before long even your most basic turret is going to cost 1,000,000,000,000,000 ISK because of the sheer amount of money there is, granted the numbers I'm describing is an exaggeration because they're all going to maintain some level of value for awhile at least but that's what we're looking at in the distant future or perhaps not distant depending on how many subscribers come to EVE.

so please, can we crash ISK?

For science? :D

It's math ;-; I was being serious, I want to crash the currency.

I'd still think it'd be a cool idea to check out the effects of an economic crash even if it won't fix anything ( frankly I think it will though regardless) :)

Also, you should look into the federal reserve, CCP are basically acting like them now and printing massive amounts of money thinking it will stop the inflation, it won't.

And yes, ISK sinks are another thing we do need, I'd love for instance to get a paint tool, that'd be a perfect ISK sink.

Perfect, sounds like exactly the type of thing we need :D

For somebody who studies the economy, you fail at it.

Switching the currencies out wont solve the over supply of hisec minerals flooding the markets on an hourly basis from thousands of players who think hi-sec mining is profitable. And I doubt you mine 24/7/365

I have no problem if you want to introduce a currency for each of the 4 main empire factions.

But killing isk and bringing in something new will doom us to repeat this cycle under a different currency.



So not supported.

By "study" the economy, do you mean watching the news and coming up with such ingenious ideas?

Take economics 101 first.

as above poster says:

stop studying economics naow!
first of all you should be figuring out ways how to improve an economy not nuke it and begin from scratch, that's only a last resort if ever.
placing limits on isk generation and fixing the value of ISK is completely anti-thetical to the sandbox mentality as well as the scope of the game. not to mention the utter failure of governments to dictate these things by fiat throughout history.

eve already possesses methods of market sterilization (isk sinks). granted these aren't perfect and it might be agreed that further sterilization is required as recent game expansions have increased the prevalence of M1 liquid isk. one can argue that supply has been bolstered while demand is stagnant leading to the current bout of inflation.

the possible remedies?

1) an increase in M2 and M3 investment vehicles as an alternative to sterilization. PLEX and Aurum attempt at this, unfortunately Aurum has been a flop and PLEX is quite volatile susceptible to market gamers.
There are still deadspace/officer modules as well as t2 BPO holders who have a large amount of isk locked up as non-liquid assets. that said there have been very few coveted module additions lately which as resulted in the stagnant demand.

2) an in-game investment mechanism to tie up excess liquidity. you seem to be looking for an NPC approach, as such i would go so far as to create an in game concord sanctioned bank for high-sec dwellers which pays a set interest rate as determined by CCP and can be updated quarterly ala current real world state banks.

the outcome and purpose of this would be to help target inflation. excess liquidity can be tied up with fixed interest setting a 'safe net return' for highsec players who choose this route. Thus instead of putting their isk into silly deadspace modules which keep going up and up in price, pilots can receive a guaranteed return.

i understand that there are currently player run corps with stocks which pay dividends. however i'm not certain on their prevalence, their safety and their in game mechanic.

all in all i'd say ISK and the EVE economy has been fairly stable, and much moreso than other MMOs.
this is mostly thanks to the depth and scale of the in game economy and how much of it is truly player driven.

most prices in game are already market determined and there are very few npc dictated price floors with even fewer price ceilings. this is something that CCP should be extremely proud of imo.
the reason the game has so many industrialists is due to the value added nature of in game production. limiting the amount of industrial input (ore) is unnecessary.

there are a ridiculous number of market/economic theories to choose, learn from, adapt and apply to a sandbox such as EVE's economy. i don't know what school you go to, or who you are being taught by, but suggesting to nuke everything already in place shows a severe lack of imagination, foundation in economic theory and monetary policy setting.

eve's fiscal policy is solely player driven and should not be touched by CCP. this is their goal.
the current in-game monetary policy is CCP set in terms of isk faucets/sinks
it is here in the monetary policy that CCP has the opportunity to expand upon using real world economic theories.



sure, as you say, real world currencies do crash and burn. when they do however, it is due to extreme economic turmoil and state peril. sure, the sansha incursions have put a strain on new eden's empires, but capsuleers are up to the task and being paid handsomely for it. no empire is crashing and our economic turmoil is inflation which really isn't that bad of a monster. it's been tamed in the past, it can be tamed now.

finally as i've stated already, these currencies/countries are in their current predicaments due to failed fiscal policies. greece requires fiscal austerity measures because for too long they've been spending more than they have (same with america).

american end euro monetary policy is not rotten (tho obviously could always use tweaks depending on who you talk to). a realignment is necessary and is currently happening. so too in EVE. inflation will peter out and prices will normalize at a new equilibrium. it will be higher than in the past, however they will stabilize.
no need to destroy the economy for the sake of gigglez.

*last edit for good measure
tldr;

GTFO you pinko commie

Take a look at mineral, ship, and T2 prices from 5 or 6 years ago and then tell me about how worried I should be.

Too bad the game has more than those four variables…