Things are getting a bit ridiculous here in the EVE community. The latest case involves a pilot named wheniaminspace, who was banned for exploiting a temporary condition that was introduced in the Crius release. I'd go into the case in great detail, but I don't want to run afoul of point 23 of the Terms of Service. Suffice it to say that a lot of people are white knighting someone who clearly deserves a permanent ban. The pilot in question is the one who used the exploit the most. Of the 31 times I detected the exploit used, wheniaminspace was involved 22 times.
Unfortunately, the article on TheMittani.com covering the exploit was pretty bad. The explanation of the exploit itself was good, but the author used a lot of filler to meet the word count in order to get paid. The article jammed two good story ideas into one. Too bad they didn't really mix well. I'd go into more detail and even link to the article, but the article did break the EVE Online Terms of Service, so I won't link it until I know that the exploit is either fixed or the condition no longer applies. Which, when I think about the subjects I've covered and pages I've linked to over the years, is pretty weird to type. However, even I have boundaries I won't cross and jeopardizing my EVE accounts is one.
That brings me to the planned topic for today. I track and write about a lot of metrics about EVE. But those metrics are usually about illicit ISK or concurrent user counts. I really need to start paying more attention to what is occurring in the game, especially in New Eden's above-ground economy. EVE's economy is probably the best of any MMORPG on the market. I should at least make one graph and chart porn filled post every month.
The Crius release is the perfect opportunity to begin. CCP revamped industry (except invention, which is coming soon) and I can start monitoring the markets to see how the changes are impacting the economy. But what to monitor?
Right now the PLEX market is obvious and I have data for Jita going back to the beginning of Crucible and for all of EVE going back to 1 June 2013. Another obvious target is veldspar and tritanium. The changes to ore and mineral compression along with reprocessing will definitely have an impact. The question is: how big?
As far as low sec is concerned, I really wonder about the impact of the new ore sites that were released in Kronos. I wonder how hard trying to track the amount of hedbergite, hemorphite, and jaspet mined in low is? Since one of the goals of spawning those sites in low sec was to draw people in to low sec, I how much of those ores players are willing to haul to market.
But writing about just economic matters is a little dry. I need to add something into the mix for other players. Perhaps I should add in some of the stats that Wollari provides at Dotlan Maps. People love graphs about exploding spaceships.
I'm still playing around with a way to present the data in an interesting fashion. Since I'm just a casual type of carebear, I'll put out a call for help. What should I look for in order to put together something intelligent? I'm sure I'm missing a lot of interesting tidbits that would give me a greater understanding of New Eden's economy. So please leave any ideas in the comments to this post. I may not use them because I'm not that good at automatically extracting information, but I'd appreciate the advice.
How about choosing a basket of common items that have a large volume / net value in the Eve economy. Think of it has the equivalent of a basket of stocks that represent the NYSE (think it is called the S&P index) or the basket of items that governments use when they want to track inflation. I am thinking items as mundane as DCII's, LSE II's, EANM's, CargoHold Expanders, Invuln II's, etc, for high volume items, and then sprinkle in some T1 frigs, cruisers, and BS's,. If you really want to get ambitious, create a 2nd index that tracks a basket of T2 ships that represent a significant chunk of the economy (value X volume).
ReplyDeleteObviously, the larger the basket, the more work involved, but also a more accurate snapshot of how Crius is affecting the game. As an example, Invuln II's are down about 20% in sell price in Amarr in 7 days, while the input costs are up. The casual high sec manufacturer has seen his margins killed because some group, most likely the null sec industrial consortiums, are producing at vastly lower costs. Clearly, I can't nail the null sec costs down precisely, because even on Sisi, I have no access to goon or any null sec cartel station.
I will be interested to see how this exploit is demarcated. It needs to not include
ReplyDelete* suicide (or assisted suicide) for insurance payouts.
* taking advantage of change to build requirements introduced in a patch. eg building ships before patch to sell after patch.
* cooperatively draining your own bounty. eg shooting your mates before being concorded.
What do you feel is the definitive thing about what he did that makes it an exploit?
Personally I feel like CCP is just throwing a temper tantrum because they said that they were happy with their valuation logic and now they have been made to look like amateurs again.
This is a good example of two different ideas jammed into one incomplete post.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost like I intentionally did it that way :)
ReplyDeleteSorry, but you're not tricking me into a EULA/ToS violation :)
ReplyDeleteI don't really think it's worth tracking the cost of PLEX. Not unless you want to use it as a bludgeon point to bolster another argument. The PLEX market and the real market are only tangentially related at best. And if I remember right, it's price doesn't reflect Eve's inflation curve either, so it doesn't even have a direct link to monetary supply. PLEX is it's own little special crazy snowflake.
ReplyDeleteWhy start using facts now?
ReplyDeletetaking a page out of poe's book.
ReplyDelete