Player Features and Ideas Discussion

First of all I would like to thank CCP for developing and maintaining such an amazing MMO.

However I have a number of suggestions to create a more self sustaining world which are designed to enhance and strengthen following areas of EVE:

Increase open-world experience / more player focused
A free player oriented supply side economy compared to the present CCP dominated one
Empire building
More realistic factory and R&D operations.
Developed Equity and Fixed Income markets
Strengthen dependence on corporations and alliances.
Better incentiments for wars

Eve market itself of being an open-world experience which is completely player driven, this is great. However many core elements of the game are CCP-given rather than player created, to mention a few: Concord, Space stations, factories, R&D development, skill books and blueprints.

Many of these institutions are absolutely necessary to the game, for example without Concord in high-sec the whole game would properly descend into chaos and anarchy (and many people would stop playing if they died everytime they logged on). It also makes sense to have the empire states, as faster than light speed and large space empires properly would not be able exist without powerful states and institutions to back it. However everything have a cost, hence CCP-given items should be expensive, taxed and heavily regulated. Said in another way, if you want the protection, easy access and comfort of the Empire you will have to pay for it via high taxes and regulations.

At the moment almost all mining, manufacturing and R&D are done in high-sec and on NPC Stations and with the right skills it can be done at almost zero cost. Instead of the existing system i suggest that CCP gives better incentiments for Player Controlled Stations, Outposts and Player ran factories inside NPC Stations.

How should this be implemented:

1. NPC Station space/inventory should be taxed. Players, Corps and Alliances should be able to rent docking/inventory space at NPC stations (rent paid per m3). If players dock at stations where no space is rented then docking for more than 10min should result in a large docking fee/tax. Equipment/ships/ore left in stations outside rented space will result in the stuff being removed (and destroyed) by the NPC station when the player undocks. Only capsules or shuttles should be able to dock as long as you want for free.

Rent prices should be set by the NPC station based on supply/demand and player held leases should be able to be traded amongst players through the market.

2. NPC Manufacturing/Factories

NPC factories should primarily support the empire and not players, so NPC industry capacity available to players should be very limited. One way of regulating it would be through Manufacturing slot vouchers. These vouchers will give the holder right to fx. 1hr worth of production at plants owned by a specific NPC corporation. The vouchers should be sold through the market, LP stores and given by agents.

Additional, different manufacturing plants should have different tech level which means that low-tech equipment can be produced on all plants, med-tech on some and High-tec only on very few or none.

3. Player owned factories

A player owned factory can be setup by a corporation either on a NPC station or a POS. The only difference between setting it up on a NPC or POS is that the owners will have to pay a HUGE tax to the NPC station while on the POS the price can be negotiated between the respective parties.

This is what is needed to setup a factory:

Taxes representing VAT, environment regulations etc paid to to the NPC station or POS.

Rented office space

Factory Building materials (either produced at planets or given by agents / LP stores)

Workers, janitors, scientists, engineers, accountants etc. (these require a daily salary to upkeep)

Refined Minerals for upkeep and maintenance

Refined Ice products for energy consumption

Various blueprints (depending on factory specialisation)

Billions of ISK - The corporation who build the plant need to invest VAST amounts of money into the plant. The money will represent the assets of the plant. The money invested will not be lost when invested, but subject to a small daily decrease representing service, upkeep and depreciation's of assets. However if the plant is liquidated then maybe 75% of the money can be retrieved.

Finally as EVE is a game based on cooperation between players, I suggest that in order to build a factory you will need a large number of players to be present at the factory location to "build" the plant. In order to build the plant the players will need various different skills (new skills leaned) which could be such as plant engineering, accounting, banking, architecture, machinery etc. The more people building the bigger the bonus will be and the quicker it will be finished, basically it should not be possible for only 1 or a few people to build a factory. Last suggestion in this regard would be that the build function works in the same way as the learning of skills works today, so when building a plant you will not be able to learn new skills or receive SPs.

4. Factory output.

The factory output should be determined by several factors, which are build upon the existing rules of EVE. I suggest that a factory can have 5 low-tec levels, 5 med-tec and 5 high-tec and maybe some specialisation to produce faction/advanced manufactures.

This means that a factory with for example 5 in low-tec, 3 in med-tec and 1 in high-tec will produce a huge amount of low-tec vouchers, good amount of med-tec and some high-tec vouchers.

However if a factory do not have enough staff, invested money, minerals or Ice products available, zero vouchers will be produced.


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I'm going to leave the lion's share of your post to more capable people than myself, but I do want to point out before anyone else that the market in EVE is player-dominated, not CCP-dominated. The things that remain available only from NPC sell orders are intended to serve as ISK sinks, which are very important to have unless your favorite word happens to be "inflation".

I pay millions in rent every month to an npc corp that owns the stations I rent offices in. How is that any different? The amount of rent I pay is also dynamic, it usually goes up because someone else has rented the office next door.

1. Then how do new players get started if they begin with no isk and cant even dock anywhere?

2. i can kinda see what youre saying here, but it seems just like a change for no reason.

3. you do realize that POSs have these things called "Assembly Arrays" that build basically everything in game right? we already have factories and they can even be anchored in high sec.

4. The problems with investment banks, or shares/stocks of any kind in this game are many:
A. There is no protection - Nothing prevents the CEO from emptying the corp wallet into his own and then taking off with the money . . . in real life the police come and arrest you for embezzlement, in eve, CCP makes a video about it and uses it as a selling point.
B. There is no real guarentee of profitability or assets on which to base the cost of a corporation's shares.

Can you imagine a noob paying the same taxes as a veteran to be able to dock up at a station,having just started out having almost nothing to his name. plus what happens if you dont play for a while?you automatically get taxed for rent?what if you dont play for a long time?you have to give all your isk to stay dock? ridiculous idea

Additional to my the discussion about docking fees.
I see the EVE world as a dark place where everything has a price. Yet you want docking and inventory space for free at all stations all the time... Dont seem very EVE like to me.

and in regards to rookie vs veteran , my suggestions already will take costs into accounts, as most veteran players would have gathered a huge amount of goods, equipment and ships - which they enjoy free storage costs for.
A rookie player with few items would not require the same space.

The original post discussed various topics where i personally put most thought and energy into trying to create a better standards to develop a more realistic supply side economy and developed capital markets. Nevertheless it seems that the most criticism are targeted towards the docking tax solution and hence I will be happy to discuss this in detail. But I will still recommend players to participate in the discussion of the other topics raised in the original post.


Alvatore I think you should keep a better standards on this forum as I find your last paragraph unnecessary. Please also read my posts more careful in the future before drawing any extreme conclusions from them.


To summarise my suggestion and ideas on docking tax:


If a player docks in a station where he has no office space available then he will face a tax after 10min and equipment/ships left behind will be lost.

Office space can be bought from the station (if any available) or in the secondary market through EVE market. Individuals, Corps, Alliances and Coalitions can buy office space.

NPC corps have office space available to their members.


Why this suggestion:
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Everything in the world costs money and so do storage on space stations. A space station properly cost an astronomical amount to build and maintain and I am sure in a free market the owners would demand payment for their services.


It will create a stronger relationships between players, corps and alliances if players have a greater incentiment to keep equipment in same stations.



Economics:


It is hard for me to set an exact price on the tax and on the cost of office space. But the current office rental system could easily be used as a foundation and hence just expanded.

In my opinion free market, supply and demand should be the base for all prices in EVE.

Hi Sigras, Thanks for your good constructive feedback and for sharing the video link.



Docking Tax:
Big corp vs Small corp -

I can see where you are coming from, a new player joins eve and starts in a NPC with only limited stations available. Soon he will be curious to explorer more of the universe and join a player corp. So what corporation would the new player choose?

With all other aspects kept unchanged with the exception of new docking tax, the initial choice seems simple - he choose the largest corporation which offers the most docking space available.

However as I started earlier, docking space could also come from Alliances or Coalitions. Which means that a small corp with access to a larger alliance could become more attractive.

Further a Small corp with more dedicated members could easily secure more docking space than a larger inactive corp.



Finally is the economy behind the suggestion. Corporation or alliances that offers docking space to members face costs. These costs have to covered somehow, and this is most likely by the members, so what might look as a cheap deal may end up as the expensive solution.

Market orders -
I agree that the system will destroy the present system with region wide buy orders. Is this good or bad? Lets analyse the pros and cons:


Cons -
Haulers, reprocessors, manufactures etc will face more administrative burdens as you will not be able to buy materials where you are not present or have office space.

These people will be forced to crate a better integrated supply network.

Sellers will also face much less liquidity (or properly none) in outskirt areas.

Pros -
At the moment almost all liquidity is in the 4 major hubs with Jita take up the largest share. This has happened because free markets will always create an efficient market place.

Forcing people to create local trading hubs will also create a growing commence and wealth in these regions. Some systems will have zero liquidity others would experience a boom if active traders chooses to move in.

Sellers willing to travel a bit further than today, will be able to take advantage of better prices and liquidity in local trading hubs.

Finally, I will ask people here on the thread if they really believe its fair that they receive free docking and storing space on all stations in the entire universe?




I agree with all you say. My whole point with a better player oriented supply economy is to give players a choice: Either choose the expensive CCP solution (research, manufacturing, industry in NPC stations) or create your own.

I believe it will create a more fun EVE universe, with more possibilities of empire building, hostile takeovers, wars over resources and production facilities.





Equity and Fixed Income Markets -
I am not that naive, afterall this is EVE :)

Yes lots of people will try to setup dummy corps and they will try to scam money from other players. However I also believe other players will be legit and will need the money to create a real economy industry and some will flourish others default.

The suggestion is still that in order to have listed shares (which can be bought and sold through EVE market) a company would need to launch a successful IPO. If the IPO is not successful, the shares will not be listed. This will put pressure on the CEO/corp to present his company as legit and they will most likely have to make arrangements with investors prior to the IPO to secure promise of funding. Additional, the NPC investment bank do not work for free (I am sure investment bankers are well paid even in the EVE universe) which means that the CEO/corp will have to put down a good chunk of fees, upfront and non-refundable, to be able to launch the IPO. This should keep away most scammers.

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