Market Discussions

Because I get asked at least once a week by some new pilot that wants to be a 3rd party. I will explain everything here so I don't have to type it out every week to some new person.

Every week some new guy comes around and posts a 3rd party thread, then wonders why everybody is trolling him and not giving him any business. 99% of new 3rd party services fail, and they all fail for the same exact reasons. It's usually some nobody who is looking to get rich and famous by being a 3rd party.


Guidelines and facts

• 99% of new 3rd party services fail.
Check the sell orders forum, it is full of failed 3rd party service attempts.


• Do not ask for trust, because nobody will give it to you.
You need to earn it.


• Do not expect to get rich from 3rd party services, because you won't.
Most 3rd party providers make the majority of their isk from other avenues.


• Do not ask for a current 3rd party to vouch for you. It's not going to happen.
They will not vouch for anybody because that puts their reputation on the line that took years to build. They have zero reason to trust you.


• Do not ask for a current 3rd party to back you through collateral.
This doesn't make you trusted, as it's still the 3rd party who is providing the security.


• Do not ask to join a current 3rd parties corporation/alliance.
This puts their reputation on the line by association. So they aren't going to let you in.

What do all the succesful 3rd parties have in common?

• They all earned their trust through years of work
• They became trusted amongst their friends and allies before going public
• They all offered some sort of service to friends/allies or the public
• They are all respectful and polite, and they don't lose their temper when somebody doesn't give them respect.
• They were already doing 3rd party work before going public (Including super transfers)
• They get enough customers willing to give them feedback that they don't need to bump their own threads.
• The major 3rd parties get eve-mail and convo spammed as soon as they login. This would drive most types of people insane.

How to tell if you are not ready for a major 3rd party service?

• If you have to bump your own service thread, you are not ready to run the service.
• If you haven't done super cap transfers before starting your service, you are not ready.
• If you can't handle being constantly mailed and convo spammed upon logging in to game, you are not suited for this business.
• If you haven't handled large sums of others peoples assets or money you're not ready.

How EVE's 3rd parties became trusted
Here are some quotes from current 3rd parties about how they got started.












Useful links
Vaerah Vahrokha page describing 3rd party services.

I will update this over time, but this is enough for me to link to when somebody asks. Also if anybody has anything to add or ask please feel free to post here.

If you want to become rich and famous all you need to do is say you're a third party, there's a lot of dopes out there with the ISK to buy supercapitals and a complete lack of common sense.

lol

You could have just mailed me privately to tell me my application was going to be declined

First of all, I have posted a new website tutorial section some time ago that is all about new Market Discussion themes, beginning with trading and continuing with 3rd Party services.


Second, I believe in quality of service and thus I preferred specializing in the financial 3rd party services niche.

In example, I rarely deal with ships exchanges, while I am much more involved into:

- collateral holding, including POS research of collateral BPOs and similar
- collateral value assesment and risk over time
- financial services including loans, funds and so on
- special transport, including super-high value collateralized transport. Last I have done 3 days ago involved a 146B fully insured value.
- insurance on the above



Another characteristic of a good 3rd party service: being recognized as neutral and fair.

Some storic 3rd party names have fallen because of them having sided for somebody or having made non neutral choices.

This is easier said than done, expecially in EvE. This also imposes a more solitary life than desired.

But that's the only way.

I am also specialized in medium / high merc corps payment intermediation, they tend to get nervous if they have to deal with less than 100% neutral counterparts. Same, even if on a smaller scale, for Wormholes transfers intermediation.

If you want to be a 3rd party, you need to have a ton of cash.
Is a rich guy likely to run off with your 1000 dollars? Nope.
Is a poor guy likely to run off with your 1000 dollars? Probably.
Is a broke guy likely to run off with your 1000 dollars? More likely.

Not necessarily so.

This is the old "morality due to liquidity" fallacity. Which in turn comes from the "everyone has a price" prejudice.

It's sometimes induced by the very reflection of the own ego projected on the other people.
A guy believing this, is prone to being a "money induced morality" person who can be corrupted or bought out with enough cash.


I am fairly sure that most Trusted Persons in EvE and also in RL, became so not because they started filthy rich.

They became filthy rich as consequence of being trustworthy.

I don't know the other guys personal story so I can only talk for myself: My first trial has been when I was just few months old in game and owned all of... 2-3 Rifters, 2 T1 fitted destroyers, 3-4 Mammoths and 2 Retrievers.
I got made CEO of a small corp to hold 43B worth of assets for a person (I think a talk about this was made in the old forums) and gave them back when he returned playing the game.

At the time I was totally unable to understand why that person was so incredibly surprised when I promptly made him CEO again and also handed back everything.
I was accustomed at other elder games (older than EvE), where Honor was the un-purchasable asset.

Even today I can log in into Istaria and hand 2 plots worth 3-4 RL years of work and money to people I don't even know too well any more, and still be sure they'll give them back to me when I come back. Exactly like I did with theirs. That's more than borrowing a Titan. That's the nature of old time gamers, I took this behavior as discounted when I started EvE.

How naive I was. But being naive paid well, because all I had to do has been to keep playing in my usual way (just learning being prudent) to enter the elusive EvE meta-game.

I'm worth a few trillion isk. I'm available to provide any sort of third-party services you may need.


I'm pretty sure that many of the richest people in Eve and real life - especially real life - are not trustworthy at all. If people on that "most trustworthy" list are filthy rich, it's because they're willing to put in the work to achieve a goal, whether that's the maintenance of their picture perfect public image or the size of their wallet.

I will start my own third 3arty service.

It will be the best. I will just throw everyone and everything down the slunk tube and it will be a vortex of uncertainty.

And then there will be a fatality.

And then we will come out on the other side.

My personal experience has not led me to the same conclusions.



I don't think that's the kind of party they were talking about, Alex.