Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So today, we had a new EVE Online record: two major multi-billion ISK market speculation opportunities on the same day... and like virtually all market speculation opportunities in EVE, they were open to EUTZ players only. USTZ players that had to work, AUTZ players that were asleep? Locked out.

The second one today, the CA-3/CA-4 implant announcement, was particularly nasty because a few dozen people were out there with multi-billion buy orders that got themselves bent over a table by CCP today (no, I wasn't one, thank Heaven). Those poor souls won't be recouping their multi-billion ISK investments until EVE is 20 years old, if then. And in the case of the SKINs announcement and the BPO mineral doubling announcement, USTZ and AUTZ players were locked out of multi-trillion ISK market speculation opportunities.

So, here's a very simple fix which CCP can implement to make market speculation a little more fair across time zones:

When CCP is about to announce a change to module, part, or ship X, CCP should cancel all buy and sell orders for that module, part, or ship.

That puts control of commodities back in the hands of whom it quite literally belongs: the sellers. As we saw today, even the short-term impact of this change would be minimal to non-existent. The market would correct within minutes. And it would give all TZs a chance to participate.

It doesn't. They're not even remotely related.

The suggestion is sound, but neither the motivations for nor the benefits from such a change are related to timezones.

Fine, suggest another solution. Because there's no question the problem exists. I'm not exaggerating about the multi-trillion ISK potential of the BPO and SKINs changes. On the SKIN change alone, some of those SKINs changed prices by 3000% in less than an hour... an hour when most of USTZ was either asleep or on their way to work, and all of AUTZ was asleep.

Not supported.

You're making two different complaints here. Firstly that people need to be protected from their own greed by CCP in case of changes (when they should be smart enough in the first place to be aware this is a possibility and limit their exposure accordingly). Secondly that economic opportunities are being restricted from certain timezones due to when announcements are made.

Investing in the market is at players own risk. We don't need the introduction of nanny-state mechanics to protect people from losing out on their investments and speculation due to gameplay changes. Only an idiot would throw trillions at any market and expect it to be 'safe'. The whole point of speculative trading is the risk, it's not meant to be 'fair'.

The only item we have clear assurances from CCP as unique is the Yacht. Anyone dabbling in collectible/rarity release items knows there is a track record of re-releases. When the collectors edition was issued we were told that all of the items it contained would be made more widely available in subsequent releases. If people have several bilion tied up in CA-3 and 4s one would hope they have the sense not to put all of their ISK into it. If they're trading at that level they should have the sense to write it off as a 'win some/lose some' scenario and move on. It's not just traders at a disadvantage here - consider the players who bought and injected these at massively inflated prices in the last week - should they be issued a refund? Ye, don't open that door.

The timezone complaint I can understand to a degree, although I've rarely heard large scale speculators complain that they haven't been able to cash in. The shennanigans with SKINs seems to be a bit of a debacle at this point, and I'm not sure it's worth using as a model for further changes on this scale. The only solution I can think of is to randomise when announcements are made which will have a significant impact on the market, but even then somebody will miss out. It's the nature of this type of trading and it should be something experienced traders take into account.

No. I made 2b on the module changes while I was asleep (AUTZ). I had planned and was prepared. If the opportunity is over in mere minutes then you really need to be set up beforehand.

One question: if you didn't want to buy it for that price, why did you place an order to buy it at that price?

If you're buying to later sell for a profit, you're not entitled to make money. Speculation is and should be dangerous.

Except there is absolutely no warning, foresight, notice, etc. there is no forecast of announcements (well be giving a gift tongue players in 2 days), would be enough for some people to stop some trades, but they can't even speculate when ccp will make the wind change.

Randomness is part of the game, but we aren't brokerage firms with 24 hour staff (minus the tradebots).

Now if this was some odd move to kill a couple of dozen tradebots who were buying high value implants, awesome move killing their wallet.

I doubt it was that.

Rip has a point, it's a pretty drastic move. Maybe something as simple as a forecast model would work. I'm not sure how you would forecast something like that, but I get Rips concern. I'd be mad as all hell if I had my investments in that implant (almost did). I was mad too when the ore changes came out (was at work). It's the hand that's dealt.

edit : Eve birthday... I guess you could have speculated something could happen... (Shrugs).

I agree with this, randomizing will get around the TZ problem. Yes, in any given instance people will lose out, but lets not the perfect be the enemy of the good.

A better idea would be to stagger the release of info they think will have major impact. It won't entirely solve the issue, but at least it's not centralized anymore.