Non-Eve Player's Perspective about CQ and CCP Leaked Document

As a developer in real life, I follow a lot of techie/programming blogs in addition to the gaming blogs I read. Imagine my surprise and amusement when one of these blogs spits out an article about Eve Online!

Written completely from a non-player point of view, this post was really interesting and went into some technical details about the recent player uprisings, as well providing a link to a supposed ‘leaked’ CCP internal document --"Greed is Good" that I had never heard of before.

Though I know vaguely of some of the protests that happened after Captain’s Quarters, I didn’t realize how involved some of the ‘revolt’ was. Forrest Smith states that “Players revolted by staging mass in-game protests flooding systems and attacking popular trade hubs.”

I’m not entirely sure how they pulled off attacking popular trade hubs successfully with CONCORD sniffing around, but I’m sure he’s referring to people smartbombing, or shuttle spamming.

Smith goes on to explain some game mechanics, though some of his information is a little old. For example, he states a titan as costing 120 billion ISK, when in reality you can get the hull for much, much cheaper now. (I suppose a complete, faction fit titan might cost that much, though I believe he was just referring to hulls in that portion of the article.)

Smith’s primary conclusion was that “CCP launched the vanity store too early.” This might be true, but I think there are some other things at stake. Smith does a good job of fleshing out the problems with the pricing of these ‘vanity items.’However, I think that the main issue was that CCP is trying to be like everyone else.

A lot of the people who play the game a lot, play because the game is NOT like all the other games. It’s more complicated, with a much higher learning curve. My personal opinion is that throwing in a ‘vanity’ store somewhat cheapens the content of the game. Unlike the addition of the tech 3 ship and wormholes, which added another level of complexity to the game, adding ‘vanity’ products is simply put: dumb and useless.

Starting Out: The Most Important Things for a New Trader to Think About

Sometimes, the hardest part about trading…is starting. (I’m pretty sure that would be some sort of Old Chinese proverb if they had heard about Eve back then. ) But, it’s true. Just like with college term papers, chores, projects at work, and exercising, starting takes about 75% of the effort.

So, what types of things should you be looking at straight from the get go?

5 Traders’ Secrets: Making Billions in Eve Online

I remember the day when I dreamed about affording a Drake. Now, I barely remember to buy insurance on sub-battleships, as the little ISK I might save after buying the ship, buying the insurance, and getting it blown up, is nearly inconsequential.

After I became a semi-successful trader, I was constantly approached by people asking me to ‘train’ them in the fine art of trading. Unfortunately, most of the people looking to be ‘trained’ are looking for a solid, one size fits all formula that they can follow every day…with the end result being lots of ISKies piling up in their wallet.

Silver and Gold: How the LOTRO Economy Could be Improved

In every game that I play, I have this tendency to gravitate toward the market or 'trade' side of things. In some games, the economy is relatively simple, or ultra controlled. In others, it can be somewhat more complicated.

After playing Lord of the Rings Online for a few months, (off and on) it was no big surprise to me when I started hanging at the auction house, scanning for trends and researching ways to make some quick gold. I admit, I wanted a deluxe house with all the trimmings, so I had some motivation for making some easy gold.

Unlike the EVE Online economy, the LOTRO economy is much more simplified. You still have the ability to produce goods out of raw materials and then sell in an auction type setting, however, you are not given many options. You are limited in the number of auction houses available in game (usually no more then one per region) and all auction houses tie into the same 'pool' of auctions. (So what you see in the auction house of one region is exactly the same for all other regions.)

Also, there is no concept of location in the economy. You bring your product to the auction house, put it up on a post, and someone could buy it in a completely separate auction house and immediately have it show up in their mail box. Therefore, you have one mass economy, and not one that is separated by in-game locations.

Also, because there are multiple servers in LOTRO instead of all players sharing one identical world, the economy could be different depending on what 'world' you're on. The supply and demand couple be different based on what type of players are on the server, and since you can not transfer your characters between worlds, there's no way to use this to your advantage or sell things cross-worlds.

After playing with the markets and economies in several mmorpgs, I think that several things could be done to improve the one in LOTRO:

Falling into Disrepair

So, my Lord of Ultima hasn't been checked or updated in at least two weeks, and I accidentally let my EVE account run out. Granted, I've been told by fellow EVE players that it's probably not the worst thing...as captain's quarters are "completely worthless and most people have disabled them." 

However, I have heard that due to the ability to make comparable amounts of ISK in empire compared to null sec, that the common empire hubs have been full with an influx of returning null sec goers looking to get in on the fun. As a result, faction warfare has taken off --and as I was a pilot for the Amarr for over a year, this somewhat perks my interest and I might might resub in the near future to see if the rumors are true. (And, of course, to look up some old faction war friends and see what their take is on this entire ordeal.)

Due to being somewhat uncaring of my LOU and EVE accounts, I have been keeping up with LOTRO, though have found increasingly better ways to make gold and have become relatively quite prosperous. This is slowly leading to my boredom of the game. I tend to be a bit of a trader and marketeer in most games I try, so whenever I 'figure' the system out...I get bored very quickly thereafter. Eve, on the other hand, has such a complicated market system with such a changing and fluctuant economy, that I never got bored with it...though after playing for four+ years, it would be nice to see some new content that is relevant and brings back my more enthusiastic attitude of the game. 

Go to Prison...and Play World of Warcraft All Day

I recently read in a news article that in Chinese prisons, prisoners are forced to play World of Warcraft in the evenings and make a certain 'quota' of in-game currency.

To some American teenagers, this would be a dream come true.

However, there are a lot of other interesting things to consider about this. For instance, when does it all become a little too much? I obviously like gaming...a lot. However, there seems to be an entire community of gamers out there that are completely obsessed, and allow gaming to take over their entire lives. The fact that this article claims that "1.65 billion worth of virtual currencies was traded in China in 2008" tells me that some gamers are taking things to a whole new level.

Secondly, the entire idea of virtual currency and virtual black markets is completely fascinating and something I research here and there in my free time. I would not be surprised if the numbers quoted in the article for 2008 have at least doubled if not tripled by now. The idea that a company can make billions of dollars for items that don't actual exist is bizarre and disturbing.

At any rate, it's a good thing they don't force WOW labor in American prisons...or we'd probably see the crime rate in adolescent boys go up significantly. =D