Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I can prove AFK cloaking camping as an opportunity cost by using simple math.

One account requires 15 dollars a month to remain active: If that account is being used for an AFK cloaker, they are generating a Zero isk income

If you wish to have an isk income you require to create a secondary account, this brings up the opportunity cost to 30 dollars amonth

If you wish to pay for both accounts with plexes(that other people buy mind you) then you require to make 1.1 billion to 1.5 billion isk a month for one account, that anywhere to 2.2 to 3.0 billion isk a month on that one account to provide for both accounts

By using basic math, that means that the account not generating any income because they are AFK cloaked is consuming 39 million isk EVERY DAY they are sitting there generating zero income.

So the opportunity cost is actually 39 million isk a day.

Maria
Oh boy.

A typical established afk cloaky camping multiple account entitlement setup
*A trading alt,
*a PI/moongoo alt
*a afk cloaky camping alt.

afk cloaky camper is logged on.

Player logs on, does his trading stuff and logs
Player logs on, does his PI moongoo stuff and logs
Player logs on with his afk cloaky camper

Player goes to his main account does stuff
afk cloaky camper remains online. Is checked occasionally to see if opportunity knocks for blop.

Player decides to wash hair. Logs off main account
afk cloaky camper remains online

Player sleeps, gets up, goes to work.
afk cloaky camper remains online

Server downtime. Afk cloaky camper logs off.

Player returns home from work
Logs on trading alt and does stuff, then logs
Logs on PI/moongoo alt and does stuff, then logs
Logs on afk cloaky camper

Rinse repeat.

0 opportunity cost. The limiting factor is how much time the player can spend actively playing EvE split across 6 pilots.

Let me repeat this for you:




now that you included a third account into the mix, that brings the opportunity cost to 45 dollars a month, this brings the plex cost up to 3.3 to 4.5 billion isk a month, and that AFK cloaker still consuming 39 million isk per day that it not doing anything. You really can't beat the math, and this is like.... basic school math man.

As for this "entitlement" everyone has a right to do what they want with their account, and their money. You throw around this Entitlement argument, very much like people throw around those silly check your privilege arguments. You basically pulled a word out of the english language and gave it more "power" then what it actually has in hopes that people will bend to it will, when they won't.

Next, do you actually know what you are saying when you say Multi-account entitlement?

A: You say, everyone has a right to a multiple accounts

B: You say, only some people have the right to multiple accounts

Or C: which is the one I think you are going for, is that people believe that by having multiple accounts they need an AFK cloaker....

I'm here to tell you that you really are wrong about that matter, as A not everyone want to do AFK cloaking, is boring as all hell, and it waste money, like I said, that account doing nothing is consuming 39 million isk /a day/.

Afk cloaking was generated as a war tactic, because local provides perfect intel, they make it "lie" to you, So yes, for those that are super super risk advise, they hunker down, and all production stops for them, or they get a belief that the guy not actually going to do anything, and in turn with time, get blown up if they are alone.

Claiming there no opportunity cost when I provided the simple math above on how there is a cost to afk cloak, is only proof that you will straight up ignore portions or ENTIRE posts if they completely counter your argument.

1. This player is not AFK, he is ATK.
2. That a player does these things over several alts is not because of AFK cloaking, but in addition too.
3. So long as the player is ATK he is losing out on the use of one of the other alts to generate ISK.

Only after going AFK is this an issue of having a truly AFK cloaked pilot camping a system.

Further, these are things a new player can do too. Nothing is stopping a new player from getting multiple accounts. Nothing is stopping a new player from training an alt to station trade, to use a cloaking ship, etc. Granted, he can’t do it on day 1, but over a relatively short time span he can have an alt that can use cloaking ships. He can have a station trading alt. He can have his “main”.

And there is still opportunity cost. The Player does not have to go wash his hair. He could stay there and log in on that account with alt and his main and rat, run missions, mine, etc. Everything has an opportunity cost. So long as you have choices, there is opportunity cost. He chose to go AFK and not rat, the opportunity cost is the lost ratting income.

Yeah, and that is opportunity cost. I could stay logged in waiting for a kill, using that alt somewhere else to generate ISK or gather resources. That I do not does not mean there is no opportunity cost, quite the opposite.

How many people do you kill when you're sleeping? In the shower,

No Jerghul there is still an opportunity cost to say AFK camping + sleeping. I could avoid sleep and rat with that character. Further, if I have a station trading alt, a PI alt, and…the AFK cloaking alt, he could also be a ratting alt (my alts are multi-faceted, all of them can invent/build, haul, PI, and some can even rat). But if I have an alt who is trained with cloaking ships and ratting while he is AFK cloaking I lose out. I lose out because he is either logged in in a cloaked ship and not making ISK, or he is logged off and…not making ISK.

Let’s be concrete.

Jerghul's Lemma:
Assume the following: We have 3 accounts and the the distribution of characters is as follows:

Acct 1:
Main—PvP and ratting.

Acct 2:
Alt1—hauling, mining, PI, invention, ratting.
Alt2—hauling, PI, Invention.

Acct 3:
Alt3—hauling, PI, Invention.
Alt4—hauling, PI, Invention, cloaking ships, ratting.

Now, let us further suppose I want to use Alt4 to camp Jerghul’s favorite ratting system. Alt4 is not 39 jumps from where I do the following:

Rat, invent, mine, and PI.

Alt 4 is useless for me to make money. If he were not off having a camping trip singing Kumbaya with you and Mike in local, he’d be logged in periodically logged in doing PI, invention and, ratting. The losses due to Alt4 being in his camping trip in this case are,

PI—lets say 300 million ISK.
Invention—lets say 200 million ISK.
Ratting—lets say another 250 million ISK.

Note that since Mai, Alt1 and Alt4 are on different accounts the above holds. So in theory I could log them all in at once. In this case the opportunity cost to sending Alt4 on a camping trip with you and Mike is 750 million ISK.

Now you can argue, “But Teckos, you are logging in Alt4 before you go to bed! Therefore there is nothing lost.” This is still wrong because I have a choice in which system he lives in. He can live in the system(s) where I rat, invent and do PI, or he can live in the camping system. By choosing the camping system he is, by definition, not in the system(s) where I rat, invent, do PI. So I still lose that ISK.

Anyone who says AFK camping is costless is wither ignorant of one of the most fundamental concepts in economics, or they are being willfully and deliberately obtuse…most likely to pursue an agenda that benefits them and more than likely harms another, in economics this also has a name, it is called rent seeking.

So not only is it you who is doing it wrong, you are just simply wrong.

No. First off the issue of time only impacts the magnitude of the opportunity cost. If I doubled the amount of active time I’d double the opportunity cost. If I halved it, it would halve (making the assumption that income sources scaled 1-to1 with time, that they might not is not a hugely complicating factor so long as income sources are a monotonic function of time).

Second adding yet another alt does nothing to the problem. I could just as easily have written:

Main—PvP and ratting.
Alt1—hauling, mining, PI, invention, ratting.
Alt2—hauling, PI, Invention.
Alt3—hauling, PI, Invention.
.
.
.
AltN-1—hauling, PI, Invention.
AltN—hauling, PI, Invention, cloaking ships, ratting.

And guess what it all still holds.

You are just flat out wrong. Anyone who says AFK cloaking is wrong.

But hey, thanks for making me think about this more formally, now I have a handy argument to link every time some anti-cloaker says, "AFK cloaking costs nothing!". Maybe I should call that post Jerghul's Lemma or something.

Maybe....maybe. If you had a station trader in Jita, Dodixie and Amarr and you are good at it and been at it awhile...maybe. Ratting? No. PI...maybe but it would be a stretch right now...maybe in NS with good true sec systems. Missions? Having 2 or 3 alts/account means nothing as there is no economies of scale.

Basically, when there is an income source that can scale with the number of alts even on the same account then you could benefit from having alts otherwise no.

Seriously, can you stop with the overly generalized statements?

As for the rest of your post...nope you are still wrong.

The only thing Jerghul your post has proven is how little danger a AFK-cloaker presents. If they are 99℅ of the time away from the computer or doing something with their "real" accounts, you really have nothing to be afraid of. It's a non-issue, like many have pointed out before.