Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In the long-run, it would destroy the economy. Every item would end up being within 0.01 ISK between buy and sell orders, and it would have an extreme negative affect on manufacturers, at least as far as modules go.

Modules, though they can only be brought into the game via manufacturing (with exceptions), can be acquired by non-manufacturers to be put on the market through PvP. A PvP'er doesn't care if their item is below the minimum manufacturing value because, to them, it's pure profit so long as it's above the reprocessing value. If there are 100 orders that are at 10000 ISK on an item whose minimum raw material cost is 10000 ISK, putting their items at 0.01 ISK below that has now moved the market to a point where it has become impossible for manufacturers to create a profit until the modules put up by the non-manufacturer have been removed from the market.

Likewise, the buy orders will end up at 9999.99 ISK on the above example as otherwise, it's cheaper to simply make the module yourself (again, looking simply at the raw material value). There would be many items whose value would be even lower, stuck at the reprocessing value.

This 0.01 ISK difference will happen on things that can be acquired without manufacturing simply because, to the one who acquired it "for free," it functions as pure ISK. Manufacturers could band together and say "we won't sell below 12,000 ISK" (hypothetical... the day EvE's player-base manages to achieve that will be the day the world ends), but as soon as a module falls into the hands of someone "for free" (be it through PvP, corp theft, or any other form of means without a direct ISK value), you're able to make a profit at 11,999.99 ISK. Shortly after, along comes PvP'er-2, who lists their items at 11,999.98 ISK.

Everything will trend to the minimum value based on material cost, or worse, the reprocessing value.

So long as something can be sold by someone who obtained it without direct material cost, you're going to end up in a situation where they're able to make a profit on it by dipping below where manufacturers can do so.

Indeed, but I don't think CCP want players spamming the market order database every 2 seconds to .01 isk each other. That's the only reason I can see for the 5 minute limit: it's a technical limitation.