Market Discussions

What do yall think? Do you think the decline in hubs is due to overall decline of eve playerbase/activity, or is there more to it than that? Is it possible that for whatever reason more and more players are simply going to jita to buy assets versus using lower tier hubs?

I think it maybe a combination of both, and not just eve being in a state of significant/rapid decline.

1) not really legit. Most trade in the hubs from what I have seen is still going on in the same stations. people can also put these up in dodixie so...

2) CODE if anything is slowing down the centralization of markets to the main hubs. I know I think twice and am still super careful anytime I haul 40 mill isogen into amarr.

3) this is the ONLY ligit argument you've put forth.


I would theorize that the centralization of markets to hubs is happening because there is no incentive to use the other systems for anything more then for farming. People will always do what will benefit them the most. Let's look at what's been changing in game:

Faster ships travel time by warp to 0 and more and more nimble ships. It now takes almost no time at all to run to a hub and buy a module. Jump freighters are able to travel from catch to jita for 35million. Freighters in general has made centralization logistically possible.

Now let's look at what incentive there is to centralize.

Centralization: volume of orders and speed of transactions. This has had a crippling effect on the outer regions. Economic activity is virtually non existent in comparison. If your selling something you go where people are buying.


decentralization: the only incentive is safety (thank you CODE).

So how can we fix this? Well you have to incentivize the decentralization. This can be done any number of ways.

Taxes. NPC stations can (and should) tax higher for the services and security they provide. This could be done on a graded approach based on number of orders.

Limiting the number of people docked in a station.

My favorite is map alterations. Move the hubs farther apart and force 0.0 between them while offering many more routes of travel.

Massive increase to the cost of JF operation.

Explodable stations and the loss of stored items similar to ship destruction.

People have to seed the market for it to function as anything more than an offshoring platform/tax haven. I mean proper commitment using multiple Tycoons to seed ALL (or almost) T2 mods and ammo at least. If I can buy a ship cheaper in one system but all the mods and ammo I need are only in the traditional hub, I would pay few bucks extra to buy a ship from there so I can fit everything I want in one location.

I'm as guilty of offshoring through Perimeter citadels as anyone with buy orders with 1j range and ridiculously low broker fee. There is almost no penalty to put up bullsh!t orders and cancel it later because broker fees are so low.

My team has been doing market seeding in less populated regions even before the citadels were announced and the key is keeping things in stock and available. People need to buy all they want in one location to consider shopping in such mini hubs. Traders also have to be more reasonable. It is normal that these mini hubs sell orders are more expensive than Jita lowest sell, but people trying to sell stuff for 2~10 times the market hub price? Just in an off chance that someone desperately needs it and don't care about ISK buy it?

Many traders are to blame when it comes to difficulty in developing a small local hub. They use it as a chance to rip off people with less management of orders because lack of serious competition. Be reasonable and supply goods to the local communities at the price level that is profitable to you AND sensible to the buyers. Stock things with great variety rather than a few items that have massive profit margin. Heck, when we were seeding a small backwater region hub we were selling some stuff AT LOSS, just so we could offer variety and keep he availability level of all things.

Margin & ISK profit will always be the top priority for traders but I wish people invest with more long term vision of developing the system/area. It's not just backwater region mini hubs. Some stuff in Rens are listed at stupidly high prices compared to Jita or even Dodixie. You may be smilng when a few of those items sell for big profit margins but people will justbsay fock this I'm going elsewhere to shop eventually.

Won't lie, I chuckled.

Interesting problem is seeding one of those Perimeter hubs, to make it into a mall rather than just for placing buy orders.

Theoretically, you could buy from Jita using buy order and see at a Perimeter citadel, but then you have to compete against the one-stop convenience of Jita, and reduced sell price on broker fee merit alone may not be enough.

Seeding away from traditional market hub could usually do a reasonable mark up from Jita or other nearest main hubs, because the convenience of being able to shop in local hub was worth it to some extent.

However, seeding Perimeter goes head to head vs Jita as a place for shopping. You cannot buy from Jita low sell and sell in Perimeter at mark up, as you could when seeding other remote hubs. If you use Jita buy and sell below Jita at perimeter, you could have profit margin, albeit very thin, probably such small discount to the extent that people will fly to Jita for its one-stop shopping attraction.

I do like Perimeter fortizar hubs with its broker fees, but for a proper hub where 'end users' go to buy and fit their ship, I think such a hub should be in reasonable distance away from Jita while offering most of commonly used items. If market were to be de-centralised, then people should work on turning that place into a shopping mall for end users.

I don't think Perimeter markets 'should be' seeded. There is no need when Jita is next door as the biggest shopping mall in New Eden.

My comment was just lamenting about the fact that most people seem to use Fortizars only as a platform for cheap broker fees.

I want to see them develop as real 'market hub' in a traditional sense, where people can come to buy all they need for their fits, and is at good location to venture into low/null/other pvp or pve opportunities or whatever.

I support, and already have been putting my isk into operations that help grow smaller local markets in various regions. That means putting stuff up on sale that may not be even that profitable or sell very often there. That means investing multiple Tycoon toons and order slots to make sure that local people can buy what they want, whatever they fly, from T1 to T2 to T3. The availability/variety is the key here.

Why 'should' traders do this? No I'm not saying they 'should'. Traders want/follow money as the top priority after all. But I think there are many more creative economic possibilities around New Eden, and Fortizar markets give such ability to the players. Yet people are planting them as close to traditional hubs as possible to save/earn broker fees.

The potential to use these structures is there, to establish something new and grow a local community, but that potential is very under utilised at the moment IMHO.

Skia, that is a very tricky issue I agree, and I have keen interst on how the industrial structures will turn out to be. If they can have markets, that would make a market only Fortizars very very meh, indeed. I have my own view on how the industrial structures should be, but that's probably more for Features and Ideas forum. :p

So yes, market potential is there, but as you correctly pointed out, it's not full potential without ability to manufacture there. Sadly.

Selling loot in Jita i found that some items are almost dead already. Talking about some meta guns here. It's easier to just reprocess the item than sell it....
So yeah.... Not only regional hubs but Jita too sees decline

From CSM minutes: "CCP explained that there would be a service module that would enable manufacturing everything but capitals and super capitals, another that enables capitals and a final one that enables supercapital manufacturing."
I can speculate that those modules can be installed on citadels too. Furthermore, engineering complexes will come in different sizes. Which means, that probably the large one can have a market module installed.

Would be interesting to see further details, like fuel consumption, amount of ME and TE enhancement with rigs, etc.

I think high sec trade is fine, I know the "ganking" which is really just piracy has had little affect on that. Now keep in mind were talking about .5 and up. Even one jump in anything lower is not high sec.

Those area's have had their markets utterly destroyed. If a region is primarily low sec. The market has almost no momentum. At best it is farmed by people selling mods for double value, or they are exporting mins to high sec for sale. Thats if any mining is done in there, which I question.

Now we can all call this 'pvp', or whatever you want to, but the reality is the majority of people who exist in low sec are poachers looking to club seals. The easiest prey also has the best meat.

Honestly some of these groups in low sec need to start policing their own area's.