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EVE Online's First Quarterly Economics Report Published
The first quarterly report from EVE Online's very own economist has been released at the game's official site. GamesIndustry.biz has some comments from Dr. Guðmundsson on this first batch of numbers, exploring a bit of his methodology and the joys of working in EVE's closed environment: "Since life in Eve evolves at a faster pace than real life, we must use a so-called 'chained price index' rather than a representative basket. In real life, representative baskets are always used and in many cases the surveys for these baskets are done with very long time intervals. By looking at our results it is obvious how the fixed basket approach can overestimate the impact of price changes, just as predicted by theory. With consumer preferences changing faster now in real life than ever before (consumer electronics is a good example), this might be a lesson that could help us understand better changes in price levels and how we measure that outside virtual worlds."
Isk farmers in eve are really out of control.
You can pull up a list of contracts on a farmer character and see trillions of isk flowing into the hands of isk sellers on ebay, report this and nothing is done....
I would ask their economist how rich players can afford the very best and how that shapes the economy in the game, when people cheat.
Cheating is going on, and I know it cannot be stopped... but it is even obvious to the layman by the quantity of isk farmer posts on the official forums.
The summary should include a link to the report itself.
Economics is all about models. They LOVE models, big sexy mathematical models, tying together figures on wildly different things to try to get a sense of the direction of the economy...Economists can pick some really silly stuff to plug into their models, so imaginary widgets isn't out of the realm of possibility.
In this situation, they can actually apply their model, and watch things play out through the actions of real people, even if they're all dealing in imaginary goods. It's really exciting stuff, especially since the changes happen faster than "real world time" so you can get a since of price fluctuations much more quickly than you could out in the real world. It's also a closed system, so you have access to ALL the variables.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
SOE boggles the mind, there fixed it for you.
I have a theory for why MMORPG's are the way they are. The companies behind aren't run by gamers who enjoy gaming as a hobby.
I will tell you a couple of game elements. SWG's jedi XP grind where as a fully experienced character you had to trade regular XP from killing into jedi XP at a 10:1 or worse ratio. Endless amounts of killing for a slow level up of your jedi skill, so that you could kill things a tiny bit faster.
SWG collectible items, a dozen incomplete sets clogging up your inventory. Lotro's reputation system, that involves farming items for measly rewards. Lotro's deed rewards that involves killing hundreds of critters so you character can go from 10% fire resistance to 11% (which means you still are 89% vulnerable).
WoW's repuation grind for.... eh what was it for again? Special mounts or something?
Eve's online levelling system where you have to keep logging in to select new skills to level up while you are logged off.
Vendor trash, an area populated with half a dozen different critters all who drop 4 different kinds of vendor trash (looted items that have no value except to sold to NonPlayerCharacters, cash but cash you have to have inventory space for) so that you need 24 empty spots in your inventory just for one area, trash like teeth that stack only to ten, while you can carry life sized statues with no problem and go swimming to them.
They are ALL delay tactics. Stuffing your inventory with junk forces you to travel back and forth. Rep grinding is just a way to keep you busy.
The odd thing is WHY? Well, because they want us to pay the monthly fee right? Well, no. Think of it, see gaming as a hobby. Is 14.95 that much? I have a friend with a hobby of scuba diving, he pays he would LOVE to be able to do his hobby for my complete costs of PC, internet and monthyly fee.
Even in gaming, plenty of other games have long lasting appeal without forcing the player to grind. Imagine if MS Flight Simulator only allowed you to fly a 747 AFTER you grinded 1200 Cessna landings. Imagine if Half-Life only allowed to to play multiplayer AFTER grinding the tutorial 100 times.
Imagine if before you could connect to a multiplayer map, you first had to spend several minutes running around a single player map to set up the story.
Plenty of single AND multiplayer games have long lasting appeal without introducing a grind, so why do ALL MMMORPG designers have this desperate urge to inject it into their games?
Would you keep playing a MMO (and more importantly paying the fee) if the pure grind like the reputation grind was removed and the only lasting appeal was the gameplay itself.
Would you raid the same instance if you didnt need to in order to get all the items?
Other games can pull that off, are MMORPG's as games that bad that they got to hook us with something else then the fun of gaming?
No, I don't think so, but it seems MMORPG designers think so.
Oh well, no time, got head into misty mountains and collect rings, almost at exhalted status, so I can get a new skin for my horse.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You have to actually work hard in this game.
Reread your own statement multiple times if you don't see the fault in it.
Working hard *at* a game is one thing, working hard *in* one is completely different.
--- I do not moderate.
So we have a story that talks about the economic report, that links to a story talking about the report, but doesn't actually link to the report.
The report that the story is actually about (but doesn't link to) is available here.
fava
It's a complex spectrum. There are mining guilds who are communistic, pirate guilds who are anarchistic, some who are fascist dictators of their guild, others who have highly stratified bureaucracies and still others who have little need for ranks or hierarchy. Most guilds are multicultural, yet some are nationalistic only having players of one real world country, and there are some who roleplay the ingame factions and only have players from their faction. There may be no ingame mechanic to set yourself 'socialist' or 'anarchist' but such a device would artificially limit the politics. As it stands, the EvE sandbox has the best political and diplomatic atmosphere of any MMO I've come across.