Quotable Quotes from the Q4 2010 Quarterly Economic Newsletter

Players in Eve Online are a bit unusual in that many players like to read about the economy.  The economy is such a big part of the game that CCP has its own staff economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, who has even been written about on the BBC website.  Of course CCP Dr.EyjoG, as he is better known, isn't just your ordinary economist.  He's a bloodthristy Viking-descended internet spaceship economist with a little role-player inside struggling to come out.  And the Q4 2010 Quarterly Economic Newsletter gave Dr. Guðmundsson a chance to show some of that to the world.  So here are some of the quotes, the boring, the shocking, and the interesting, that struck me as I read the QEN.

"Though the Central Bank of EVE does not see a reason for alarm, it has voiced its concerns and proposed changes to be made to the faucet/ISK balance, which might include anything from bounty changes and NPC price changes to changes in taxes." (p. 6)

Not only is this quote significant for upcoming changes in the game, but since Dr.EyjoG controls the Central Bank of EVE, this is a bit of releplaying coming out.

"In the words of Ernest Hemingway: 'There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those whohave hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.'

"Keep on hunting your enemies – it is good for the EVE economy!"  (p. 7)

Did I mention he is a bit bloodthirsty?

"The urbanization of EVE hence continues, where people gravitate toward the most active commercial centers. This is an interesting parallel to the development of population distribution on Earth." (p. 11)

Okay, most of the quotes are not humorous.  But isn't something similar in the civilization building business taking place in null sec?

Speaking of null sec, some interesting information came out about supercapital losses.

"Overall, since their introduction, there are existing records of 292 supercarriers (formerly motherships) and 80 titans being destroyed, with over half of those – 155 supercarriers and 45 titans – being destroyed in 2010." (p. 14)

"With a new revision of sovereignty mechanics in the Dominion expansion of December 2009, this [starbase invulnerability in a capital system] was removed. The impact this has had is clear: out of the 45 supercapital construction deaths that have taken place in EVE, 30 have occurred since Dominion." (p. 17)

And what was the effect of the introduction of the Noctis?  The numbers are a bit amazing.

"Pilot interest in the Noctis was immediate and substantial. On November 30, in half a day, 2,187 ships had been manufactured of that type. In December, an additional 54,509 such ships were made. This requires some serious quantities of minerals. The low-end minerals needed for Q4 production of the ship were 3 million units of Isogen, 17 million units of Mexallon, 58 million units of Pyerite and 209 million units of Tritanium. To put this in context, 16% of the total quantity of Pyerite, Mexallon and Isogen used for ship production in the month of December went toward production of the Noctis. The ratio was 14% for Tritanium." (p. 25)

As for the specter of inflation?

With Incarna being launched this year we do expect demand to increase in 2011 with the risk of increased inflation. If that does happen countermeasures would have to be taken in the form of increased sinks, reduced faucets or even higher taxes in the system. (p. 32)

Personally, I think implementing the reduced faucets has already begun.

The next quote I found reminded me of a post Mord Fiddle wrote about the unintended consequences of some of the changes CCP has made to null sec.

"The interesting part here is that manufacturing has been moving away from low security space and null security space since 2007. In 2010, 73.6% of ship mass was produced in high security space, having risen from 66.3% in 2007. Null security space accounted for 12.6% of ship production in 2010, while 12.9% came from low security space. Though nearly undetectable on the graph, 0.9% of ship production took place in wormhole space." (p. 38)

2007 just happens to mark the introduction of the jump freighter to Eve.

Finally, I found the next quote so interesting I actually made a post about it, but I think it deserves repeating.

"In all, 908 players did almost 1.3 million research runs on the blueprints. Every single run was wasted. When starting a manufacturing job, the window with the quoted cost and list of materials shows all three ingredientsin Nanite Repair Paste under the heading of Extra Material. Material efficiency has no effect on such extra materials. This should probably be better publicized" [emphasis mine].  (p. 44)

Ya think?