EVE General Discussion

I think the point he's making is that buy orders in the game are not binding and this doesn't reflect reality at all.

Depends on your point of view whether or not this is an exploit. It deserves a fresh look at least and productive conversation from the community.

Whether or not you agree with it, making buy orders binding would fix the margin trade scamming problem. Is this what everyone's afraid of?

How many replies on this thread are really from margin trading scammers?

Because you can't differentiate between a person buying an officer module to use and to sell to a buy order for a quick profit, the only way to "fix" margin trading scams is to get rid of the skill.

I think removing jita chat would solve 80% of your problem actually.

You misunderstand completely. The person "not knowing the mechanics" in Tippia's reference is not the person using Margin Trading, but rather the person getting fleeced by it, because they didn't understand how the whole thing works.

…which raises the question of why it needs to be fixed. It's not a problem, after all.

No, I think that if someone looks at the market and sees a buy order and then blindly believes that this means that he is mechanically ensured to get that exact amount of money, he doesn't know what's going on.

Falling for a the margin trading scam is no different than not updating the market window and failing to notice that someone else beat you to the sale (or the buyer cancelled the order): the order is gone, you still have the goods, you are free to try some other order to liquidate your stuff. If at any point you didn't do your research and bought stuff at outrageously inflated prices, then that's your problem. So your not paying attention or being unfamiliar with the market mechanics does not make it an exploit.

You mean kind of like how it already works?

My chief complaint with the Margin Trading scam is that it defies the definition of that term used in any other market. The EVE market behaves like a typical commodity exchange in almost every other regard except when it comes to margin trading and buy orders.

In any commodity market I know of, there's no such thing as an uncloseable buy order. An order on the board will be filled if a seller steps up to fill it. The buyer may cancel their order at any time before it is filled, but they are on the hook the moment the transaction takes place. It is not unreasonable to expect people to rely on their knowledge of market operations when viewing buy orders when every other part of the EVE market works as expected in RL markets. I have expounded on these differences in previous posts.

There are good and salient points made about how difficult or even impossible it would be to implement true "margin trading" in EVE (the argument against negative wallet balances and the disposable nature of characters, for instance), and I generally agree with those. I don't think Margin Trading needs to be "fixed" in that regard.

I do feel however that some distinction should be made between clear, fillable buy orders, and those that cannot be closed because there is insufficient capital in the buyer's wallet to complete the order. This would, to some degree, keep the EVE market aligned with the typical expectation of commodity market operations. My best suggestion for this in the past has been that for those buy orders where Minimum Volume * Buy Amount > Wallet Balance, the order is highlighted in red and provides the message "This order can not be filled at this time" when the user mouses over that order line in the market interface. In this way the user may know exactly how the market will operate, which is what is expected.

There is a problem revealed by the Margin Trade Scam...

CCP does a pisspoor job of informing new players that buy orders are NOT guaranteed!

Before a child understands how a silver dollar is worth more than two quarters, they innately believe that two quarters are worth more because 2 is more than 1. If CCP doesn't educate people as to the nuances of the market (i.e. that buy orders are may not be legitimate), then people will easily fall for this scam.

Now, perhaps I'm ignorant of CCP's education system, but I would like some additional effort put in place to inform players of common techniques for scamming.

Something as simple as a "warning" above the buy orders section that "buy orders will fail if the buyer has insufficient funds".

Outside of that, let the scams continue!!!

You seem to think it's an exploit... seems your the one in the fantasy world.



Wouldn't matter... look at why we have a "safety" for the morons who apparently don't understand mechanics of shooting internet spaceships.

EVE has a bit of a different way of educating than most MMOs. The onus is on the player to educate themselves. That, or have someone else "educate" them, which typically involves eating a loss of some kind, and learning from a mistake made.

Educating themselves, like this:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Market_guide

That link does need cleanup, and it is EVElopedia after all, but there is plenty of useful info there for the newbie.

What I think you fail to understand is, the ignorant will not always remain ignorant. Another player may come along and help them out, or they might decide to look the info up themselves. But the stupid will always remain stupid.

Very true. +1 like

While joining a corp with informative players, reading the wiki, and following the forums will keep you informed and up to date on current tricks, techniques, et al, I believe certain information should be immediately presented to players that are learning the game. IMO, this should include:

How to use the market (which should include a warning about how buy orders are NOT guaranteed).
Basic Aggression Mechanics (i.e. what allows other players to shoot you, including a warning they can always suicide into you).

Nothing major, but something to turn the victims from completely ignorant to simply oblivious.