EVE New Citizens Q&A

Me again!! (i'm so sorry)

I might think about EvE when I'm in bed waiting to go to sleep and think of things that could help me ingame.........i'm cool.....honest!!

Is EvE's economy a living organism like the US or UK economy?

The reason I ask is because a few people have been commenting on the low returns from date and relic sites recently from what they used to be 2 months ago. I don't know what is good and bad prices.

Do prices fluctuate for periods of time? I don't want to have to change how I make isk with the effort I've put into exploration so far.

Kind regards,
Teium

Do actual players by the stuff I hack? I just go to Jita and sell it all. Thought it was just like selling to an NPC in other games

The economy is mostly player influenced. Apart from a few basic ships and equipment you get for free when you start Eve, all the other ships, their modules, their ammunition and so on was made by players and bought by other players to use (ok, a little bit of it comes from looting wrecks but only a small amount).

Prices can fluctuate based on player behaviour. A very big player run corp might try to restrict the supply of certain materials used to make things, to drive up the price of those materials and profit from that (it's been done before). Or a player run corp might try to flood the market with materials or items to drive down prices, and damage the income of rival player corps. Some individual players have tried to spread rumors in order to influence what is being bought and sold to manipulate prices to their advantage.

CCP doesn't try to control the market. They decide what ships/modules and other items should be in the game, but leave it to the players to decide for themselves what they want to use and therefore what gets bought and sold. If CCP make an item too powerful compared to other items, after some time they will adjust it's details to make things more balanced for players, and that adjustment may affect the market price of the item, but CCP doesn't do that to change the market, they do it to try to keep the game reasonably balanced for players and let the players decide what they want to spend their iskies on.

Not every player in the game wants to make your ship explode and die in a fire, some of them want to make your wallet explode and die in a fire.

Enemies everywhere in this game lol

Very true

I knew it was a very very big market, but never knew it was so real world

I'm probably just panicking over nothing. I'll just see what happens to data/relic items in the coming weeks.

Exploration is very random. You might go weeks with nothing to show for it, then a few more weeks of jackpots.

If you understand that point, you start to see that Player vs Player (PvP) is everywhere in EVE and in most MMO's, EVE just takes even Player vs Environment (PvE) up to that next level.

If you work in moderation in the markets, it's actually pretty easy to sell and buy goods reasonably. If you want that last 0.01 ISK out of everyone, you need to work your tush off for it. The Market is it's own game inside of the game.

EVE really boils down to 3 main "Aspects" of it's game... all are PvP, but the first two are considered EVE's version of PvE.

1. Ingress (Resource Gathering). This is Mining, Salvage and Missions. These are the activities that support the market and train the players to do more advanced activities found in the other two aspects. Some players actually stop here and have fun in this area. Most graduate on to focus on the other areas in some fashion. Yes, fun can be had here. It's also where most solo players tend to spend time.

2. Industry/Research/Marketeering (Materials Creation and Evolution). This is where things get made and discovered. New equipment from CCP gets introduced in this area when they decide to have something new. Players here spend lots of time in stations doing what is generally referred to as 'egghead' type stuff. You can also put Market Manipulation here where players buy and sell things to make a profit, using the game like a stock trading floor. It can be just as cutthroat here as any space battle, but doesn't have all the glamor and explosions to go with it... just the tears.

3. Destruction. The end game of EVE. Everything from the previous two aspects are funneled here. Ships, Player owned stations, fittings, fuel, ammunition, drones, etc. etc. all die here. This is what many players consider to be PvP in EVE, however, it's really just the most common facet of PvP, even the other two aspects are PvP based. Salvaging and Looting actually rotate the cycle back to the first two aspects so it neatly rolls right around and the EVE universe keeps going on and on.

That's the cliff notes version of EVE economics. Pick your poison, play your game... make it your game. Have a ton of fun. If you get bored, try something else.

EVE is great stuff!

A few things I haven't seen mentioned in other posts:
1. The Eve market is a pure commodity market - about the only differentiation between your product and someone else is price and location.
2. The market is cyclical. The market tool has a history tab that will show you the cycle for any product you're interested in for the past year. The cycle is pretty stable unless the developers make a change to the game that impacts that item.
3. Selling to buy orders in Jita is a good way to make someone else rich. Create sell orders in one of the smaller hubs. It's more work but you'll be well paid for the effort.