EVE General Discussion

Which leads up to my second question:
Is passive income a problem?

EVE mirrors many aspects of real life (having to have an income to pay for hobbies/passions, insurance, market fluctuations, conflict over territory and/or opportunities, etc.). However Data Cores have been one of the few possible passive income options, and only with high Skill Point requirements and a significant level of grinding (with meager mission payouts). Once even the best R&D agents are available to you, you still are unable to “get rich” off of it.

It could be said that you never get something for nothing, and this is true, however the time, Isk, Skill Points, and effort are hardly “nothing.”

Is there a real world example that corresponds to Data Cores? I believe so - rental properties share many parallels with Data Cores. There is a significant upfront investment in exchange for long term gains – a trickle of cash from month to month. The payback is slow, and the investment large causing few to put the effort forth to obtain these 2 similar income streams.

In EVE if you have 3 characters on 1 account that are all optimally set up for Data Core generation you will not even make enough Isk to Plex, while the amount of time required to get to this point = around 90-120 days per character depending on implants for a total investment of 9-12 months (not including the PVE skills required to be able to grind for the R&D agents). This arrangement would reduce the monthly grind required to maintain an EVE Online account significantly, but at a price tag of $98.55 to $209.88 in real world U.S. Dollars (depending on implants and payment method with $98.55 optimized in both and $209.88 minimized in both). To put it in terms of Plex – 5.66 Plex on the low side to 12 plex on the high side – that means a payback period of 34 – 68 months (3-6 years) are required just to get the amount that was spent on the account while training the skills required to get Data Cores (not including the cost of the skillbooks, ships and ammunition).

I personally have 8 Eve Online accounts with 12 characters – 10 of which have maxed out Data Core gathering skills. Can I make Billions of Isk in a year under the old system? Yes, but each character makes less than 100Mil Isk a month and my total investment is over $1225 (only including R&D skills and bare minimum PVE skills). This does not include all of the Isk for ships, skill books, and ammunition, not to mention time and angst that went into procuring this small stream of residual Isk income.

To have all of the time and money that went into getting Data Cores basically reduced to nothing is a real slap in the face. I'm sure anyone can imagine how they would feel if they paid $1225 for something and put in long boring hours and had it basically confiscated. Bottom line – lousy.

Now I am not one to gripe and whine about a problem, at least not without proposing a reasonable solution. I have a few proposed solutions to this problem:

1. Reinstate the old system. (The people who get data cores are not getting rich off of it, the market prices are reasonable, and dues have already been paid)

2. Reimburse players in cash for the losses that the new system causes. (lets face it – not going to happen)

3. Reimburse players in Plex for the losses that the new system causes. (reasonable and has less cost to CCP).

4. Give players the option of getting back the Skill Points that were spent into these skills, and applying the standings gained with R&D corps to a different corp (lets face it R&D corps suck). (While not as nice as option 1 it is reasonable and gives players a chance at compensation without any cost to CCP (other than implementation) and is much like what was done with the removal of the learning skills a while back)


I do dearly love EVE Online and hope to play for years to come. However remembering what was said in the not to distant past (something along the lines of we ignore their words and look rather to their actions) I am canceling all of my accounts (8 accounts) and I am calling on my fellow capsuliers to also stand up and be counted.

Is “the grind” what you (CCP) want EVE to be about? If it is, I think I can even live with that (possably... those are some sexy ships... Mmmmm), but I am not interested in dealing with a company that abuses it's costumers, and negating that much real world money, time, and effort without some form of compensation is abuse. I realize that you (CCP) view the Data Core system change as a process, and you might have things already set up to take care of this situation - I like to think so and hope that that is the case. However action is demanded as precedent has already been set, and if I am wrong and you (CCP) do not have a plan in place or intend to compensate players for their loss, then I will be forced to take the $1370 (minimum) that I spend on this game each year and sadly go elsewhere.

Again you guys have been doing a great job with the new expansions – EVE is shinier than ever before and 3 times as sexy. I am exited to see what great new innovations you come up with next!

Respectfully,
Hottie MissHotHot

P.S. Screen-shots of canceled subscriptions will be attached to this when sent to CCP, but not in distribution on the forums.

What are you talking about? The rps still come in passively. They are charging us 10,000k to take out a datacore so we'll just increase the cost of them in the market by 10,000. Or whatever the price was.

Then FW will add a competitive active version of getting datacores. Thus there is now the old passive system, and a new active system. Which is dynamic based on who is winning. Which is really exciting actually. But I'll let you figure out how for yourself, I'm going to make a ton of money!

Interesting read, but I think it is too soon to start screaming about it all. Yes, the output is nerfed. Yes, the availability of datacores is from more than one source now. However, the overall effects of the changes are not clear yet. If enough people rage quit will supply drop enough to keep prices up? Will people be investing is FW LP for cores or will they be investing in other 'shiny' stuff?

While I do not have anywhere near your level of investment with DC farming, I did just finish the grind to do it right before they announced the nerf. It sucks, but I intend on riding the market and see what happens with it.

The income is not enough to supply a PLEX at the current levels. I believe it is only 1 billion isk a YEAR.

Yes, I too have several chars that I made just for this.. and have no idea what to do with them now.

I was making about 100mil a month from d/c's... with this change alone and NOT including the competition from FW LP's, the income is already 1/2 as the made the RP's necessary go from 50/100 which is now 1/2 the income...

If FW LP's don't compete at all (not likely) then my income drops to 50mil a month... but I suspect it will drop to 15-25mil a month per char, effectively killing the chars purpose.

I agree we need something to "unwind" this deal... and being able to move standings and R&D sp's is a minimum option.

Sorry you're way off. FW systems will have bonuses for ALL players in the game. Like a 50% reduction in market taxes. And in the same systems where FW pilots will be grinding up datacores.

But now it gets more interesting. The winning side also gets a bonus to LP gain, and a discount on datacores. At max a winning side can get a 75% discount on datacore while also gaining 20% more LP. The prices will be cheap will all that produce flooding the market in the new low TAX FW trading hubs.

Once a side starts to lose, the datacore prices will go up, until they cost 400% more than normal. And they will lose the bonus LP on kills and such. This will increase the prices dramatically, resulting in a market that can be manipulated like no market has ever been in eve. And I intend to not miss out. In fact it might even become a brand new mini-profession in the eve database. Datacore war manipulator trader. It's going to be like playing the stocks!

and playing the stocks.. is... fun... >.> <.<
Don't judge me!

I'll let you think that you small minded player you.

VFK is a myth, and Goonswarm are the imaginary monster in the wardrobe

I'll just wait until Technetium is available through the FW LP store too.

Pro-tip: Suggest CCP get rid of the passive collection of SP in the current system. As CCP doesn't want passive anymore, this is the next logical step since you passively collect SP until you can collect the payout later and use that module/ship/industry when it clicks over to level 5.

Think about it. Its passively being collected, ghost training was nerfed just as much as ghost R&D so this just has to happen.

/thread

Apparently you did not think before you posted.