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[scagga]

I casually note that you are a person with a vested interest in being able to produce items, from a corporation with a large production portfolio.  It is hard to assess to what degree your self-interest is influencing your views on what is good for EvE.

Firstly, I disagree with your characterisation of a reduction in constraints in supply as a 'difference' in constraints.

I also note that my initial reference was to 'capacity constraints on production'. I take it from your silence on capacity constraints on production and limitation to demand-side ceilings that you concede there are no constraints on how many items an NPC vendor can produce nor how fast nor are they dependent on materials of any kind sourced from any place.

I acknowledge your disagreement with my view.   

You make a retrospective note on your initial reference to production constraints.  My last posts indicated that there are constraints on NeX items, of a demand nature.  I don't see why you raise this as an issue now.

I agree that there may be no theoretical limits to how many items an NPC vendor can produce.  In light of the fact that the market supply is effectively limited by a factor of demand, the absence of theoretical production limits is irrelevant.

You realise that supply of existing items in EvE also increases with increased demand?  There is unused production capacity (e.g. for minerals), which isn't tapped due to profit limitation, which is a factor of the supply-demand model.   A trivial example: If the price of tritanium suddenly tripled due to high demand, production would increase in kind.  If the price fell dramatically due to reduced demand, production would decrease.  The fact that there is theoretical extra capacity does not mean it will be used and raising it as a point seems very weak. 

In fact, every single in-game supply-side constraint is absent from NeX items.  Thus, your argument by analogy with the introduction of different ship types manufacturable in game by player-characters (we have Machs, people still fly 'pests) is misleading: the price and availability of faction and T3 ships is not only limited by the number of people who want them and are willing to cash in PLEX (or forgo buying a PLEX to save themselves sub money) for them: their supply is limited by additional factors not applicable to T1 ships (you don't have to take any special means to obtain a Tempest BPO, while you do a Mach BPC, and you have to rinse-repeat for continued manufacture; as for T2 and T3, they require special skills and special materials not needed by T1). Not only will NeX items not have supply-side constraints higher than existing items: they will not have any at all.

I think you are making far too much of the on-paper difference in what limits supply for these products.   I also think your market explanation is not correct for the following reasons:

- If someone wants a T3 ship, there is no problem with availability, despite all these limits.
- There is a theoretical supply limit, but there is no shortage on the market; one can easily go and buy one from a hub.  The market is saturated as the prices are nice and stable. 
- Since the theoretical supply limit is nowhere near reached, it is irrelevant. The REAL limiting factor to supply AND demand is profitability, which is linked to product cost.

You are also misreading causality in your counter-argument about T3 ships. T2 ships did not die with the introduction of T3 ships, we agree there.  They weren't even negatively effected in a measurable way.

You make the assertion that because T3 ships have a production chain that limits their supply, that this is part of the reason why this is the status quo.  I can accept that.  But, I cannot accept you using that as an argument against Aurum. 

$$$ will also act as a supply limiter to Aurum products.  Do you really expect the market to be flooded with Aurum products (ships, modules whatever) if they start becoming available?  Do you think enough people have enough money to buy them?  Do you think enough people have enough isk to buy them?  Do you think that the number of people who will buy them will buy so many that they will be able to significantly reduce demand for T1/T2/T3/other existing items?  I think you forget how huge the EvE market is.  Aurum sales will represent barely a fraction of the market...there simply isn't enough rl cash to damage the competitiveness of existing products if Aurum products are priced in the scaled range that they are now.

Look, T2 producers aren't crying foul that T3 ships are on the market.  If there was no production chain for the T3 items and they appeared on the market through aurum purchases (priced high enough so their isk costs would be similar to what they are now), how would that be different to the current status quo, for the T2 producer?  Like all products, Aurum products will be subject to supply and demand.

What you are saying simply does not follow in market logic terms, and I don't know if the conflict of interests has something to do with it - you also don't seem to pay attention to what other people want.  What about those people who enjoyed purchasing monocles, feeling above the rest of the community?  That is what Aurum stores are there for.  It's not for the grinders who are happy to collect stuff, press buttons and get products.  In some cases it's for people who want to feel special, and sometimes people can't achieve that through ingame actions because they lack skill.  MMORPGs need to cater for subsets other than yourself and you seem to not care about that. 

You want this upgrade to positively affect your playstyle, and I respect that, but it is not a good strategy for trying to appeal to more kinds of player in my view.

Secondly, as I said in my first post, as someone who enjoys manufacturing and market PvP, the introduction of a competitor into every single station, if they are selling comparable or better goods to me, who has no supply-side constraints, would be disastrous for my enjoyment of the game.  Any market niche occupied by NPC vendors is not one players can participate in to any profit, as they have zero costs, infinite immediate supply, and an arbitrary price unrelated to mineral or other component prices.

This is why I think your conflict of interests is the main engine of your argument, rather than logic.:

The sales of your products will be unaffected, unless you can prove that a significant proportion of your buyers (of presumably T1/T2/T3 lines) will buy Aurum instead.  The evidence suggests that the cost of buying these items will be much higher than any others currently in existence.  Therefore you are not competing for the same market, because the people who would be buying aurum would already be buying top end materials now anyway in order to get the best advantage.

The message you are giving me is that you want to be able to produce Aurum because you would enjoy it.  Your arguments about it affecting your current operations do not make sense to me because they are contrary to market logic.

The outcome on the economy of Eve would be for those sectors of it to be vacated by players.  This would reduce demand for the minerals and components used in those sectors, resulting in players also vacating the supply-side activities involved in supplying those minerals and components, i.e. mining.

Now, this may not seem to you to be a bad thing. Fewer industrialists and miners, in exchange for the convenience of an NPC vendor able to provide you with a ship instantly in every station, perhaps a fair trade for some.

Again, this would only happen if a significant proportion of the EvE economy becomes Aurum based.  How much money do you think the average people will spend on aurum per month?  $100?  That will get you 1.6 monocles.  How much do you think a ship or module would therefore cost?  Do you really think people will buy that many items at the prices they are?  Please could you reconsider your disaster scenario for industrialists and miners, as it is over-dramatised and not based on a credible model.

But for those of us for whom those activities are our gameplay, the introduction of magiced-out-of-nothing ships or modules would remove our playstyle from Eve.

You can't lose something you don't have.  Producers can't produce Aurum now, they don't lose anything if they never can produce Aurum. 

[Ulphus]

A trivial example: If the price of tritanium suddenly tripled due to high demand, production would increase in kind.  If the price fell dramatically due to reduced demand, production would decrease.  The fact that there is theoretical extra capacity does not mean it will be used and raising it as a point seems very weak. 

I think you've got the causality there backwards.

If demand increases, then the price will rise, if the price rises, then the producers will make more (if they can) that may mean they are willing to pay more for minerals, which makes minerals more worth mining, which means some people will mine who might not otherwise have bothered.

If fewer people want a product, then the producers will have extra stock and reduce the price to get rid of them, and produce fewer in future, which means demand for the stuff that goes into those products (e.g. minerals) will go down, and the price of minerals will drop.

Of course, if demand switches from one product to another product with similar resource requirements, the prices of those products may rise and fall without affecting the overall demand for the minerals required to build them, and thus the mineral price may remain unchanged.

But People do not buy more tritanium because the price of Tritanium has tripled, the price triples because people are trying to buy a lot more of it.  That's an important distinction.

[scagga]

I think you've got the causality there backwards.

If demand increases, then the price will rise, if the price rises, then the producers will make more (if they can) that may mean they are willing to pay more for minerals, which makes minerals more worth mining, which means some people will mine who might not otherwise have bothered.

There is nothing wrong with what I have said.  You are simply repeating what I am saying without making a new point.

I do not have to provide a reason for the price rising, unless you just want me to explain everything from first principles and write even longer posts.  I was explaining the effects of price dynamics on production when there is unused capacity.  People who can produce will be encouraged to produce more, and more people will see production as profitable and possibly engage in it, which you have repeated here.

In the case of an Aurum-based product for resale on an isk market, the supply will be directly linked to the ongoing prices, which in turn are influenced by demand.  Which is why, if you read further in the post, demand was the final decider of supply.  People will simply not buy more aurum products with $$$ for sale on the market if the price is not better than reselling PLEX.  There is no reason to wring your hands and fear a price crash of aurum products that will endanger other product lines, the scale of prices are so different that they are a market for a different kind of buyer.

But People do not buy more tritanium because the price of Tritanium has tripled, the price triples because people are trying to buy a lot more of it.  That's an important distinction.

Strawman.

I don't know what relevance this has to a discussion about the price of an item on the supplyside, which is what was I talking about.

[Casiella]

FYI, rape =/ anything that happens in an internet spaceships game.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rape

7. to plunder (a place); despoil.

It is, however, a word with significant emotional connotations and should not be used lightly. If you don't understand why, contact your local women's shelter.

[Bacchanalian]

My point is, like many other words, it has several meanings.  And implying that I have no experience with the effects of such issues is not only ignorant, it's offensive, but as a moderator yourself I don't expect your post to be moderated.

[Casiella]

(I've respond in a separate thread, Bacchanalian, so as not to draw this one even further afield.)

[Bacchanalian]

On topic, incidentally, someone on FHC pointed something out that I think is valid.  So far, CCP has been giving us free content for a long time.  Expansions, new ships, new items, new mechanics. 

Once CCP starts introducing new ships and items for $$, what's their incentive to ever add free content again should that be successful enough to make them happy with it?

[Chell Charon]

On topic, incidentally, someone on FHC pointed something out that I think is valid.  So far, CCP has been giving us free content for a long time.  Expansions, new ships, new items, new mechanics. 

Once CCP starts introducing new ships and items for $$, what's their incentive to ever add free content again should that be successful enough to make them happy with it?

Actually. We get free updates so "we" not only are - relatively - forgiving but the player culture actually enforces the attitude. Think how that changes if you end up paying (directly) for the updates?

"I paid 20 Euros for an update that turned my graphics gard into a grill!!" -Is it a pro or con for us? How about the CCPants?

[scagga]

On topic, incidentally, someone on FHC pointed something out that I think is valid.  So far, CCP has been giving us free content for a long time.  Expansions, new ships, new items, new mechanics. 

Once CCP starts introducing new ships and items for $$, what's their incentive to ever add free content again should that be successful enough to make them happy with it?

While Ccp makes monetary gain from one of the voluntary ways of engagement with new content, you have to accept that if the items can be bought via isk that saying you are being directly  charged £ for content is not true. What is happening is that people are being given the option to use £ to get content as well as isk.

[Saede Riordan]

I must say, on an OOC level, looking at the characters, I can't quite fathom how Jade and Revan's relationship manages to work. They seem to be diametrically opposed to each other philosophically...I just can't see how that works out...I suppose love makes you blind.

[Ciarente]

Scagga, I'm not sure why you need to 'casually' note that I am 'a person with a vested interest in being able to produce items' since I have been very clear since my first post in this thread that I am a manufacturing and industry player and it is a playstyle I enjoy.  While you use the nineteenth-century binarism of 'vested interest' vs the implied 'objective observer' as a rhetorical device to devalue my opinions and elevate your own, it may interest you to know that developers of public policy in the twentieth century came to realise that there is no such thing as true objectivity, as everyone has a barrow to push (ranging from a material interest to an emotional investment in maintaining a public persona as an iconoclast/ deep thinker / defender of the status quo / whichever else ) and that individuals and groups involved in the issue at hand had knowledge and experience that could feed into and improve decision-making processes, hence the use of the term 'stake-holders' as a less pejorative way to describe those with a stake in the decisions being made.

Every player of Eve has a stake in every game design decision that is made, greater or lesser depending on the proximity to their playstyle of the decisions being made. A player who, for example, has previously reduced the number of their accounts due to the IRL costs of subscriptions, has a clear stake in CCP moving to a MT funding model, especially since other games that have done so have removed or dramatically reduced subscription fees subsequent to such a decision.  I have a stake in any changes to the operation of production and the market in Eve. I also have a stake in 0.0 jump-bridge changes, loot nerfs and the anti-macroer mining changes that are periodically discussed as being on the table Soon^(TM).    Having such a stake does not invalidate my opinion or require that I refrain from expressing it.

I'm also not sure why you choose to refer to my direct quotation of my initial phrasing as 'retrospective'. Referring to one's original point when one's interlocutor has ignored it is not, as far as I am aware, poor debating form, and indeed is something you yourself do in debates on these forums.

I disagree that the absence of production limits is irrelevant. You have chosen to use tritanium, a widely-available high-sec mineral, as an example, however, as those involved in the production chain know, the bottlenecks to production are sourcing and acquiring less easily obtainable low-sec minerals.  The spike in zydrine prices last year, for example, did not lead to a change in the amounts traded, because everybody was already selling and buying all the zydrine they could get their hands on and continued to do so.  The production capacity of minerals in Eve is limited not only by the total availability of sources but also by the total availability of players undertaking the activity to provide them and their ability to get their product to market - both activities that can be disrupted and even prevented by other players.

Your reliance on your assumptions about pricing of (wholly theoretical) Aurum items is, of course, a valid hypothesis, but as a result, I cannot accept as persuasive your unsupported assertions that IRL costs will act as a significant limiter to Aurum products. "If CCP prices a battleship at US$1,000, not many people will buy it" is a reasonable expectation (although it is always possible such an expectation would be confounded).  "If CCP prices a battleship at US$1,000, not many people will buy it, so therefore any Aurum products will have no effect on the market" is a non sequitur.  Your entire argument about 'market logic' is based on this assumption, and is therefore unsupported.

It is also a non sequitur - and frankly, I would have expected it to be beneath you -  to assert that because I believe that NeX stores selling comparable or better modules and ships to those players can produce would have a negative effect on industry, production and market-oriented game-play, I'm being mean to people who want to buy 1.2B ISK monocles.

I also disagree with your implication that if a game design change positively affects a (in this case, purely hypothetical) player, the opinions of players who are negatively affected are devalued. As I said above, all game design changes affect players. I have in the past generally approved of game design decisions that have directly disadvantaged my character's ISK earning potential - for example, the loot nerf - because I believed they were in the interest of diversification of playstyles.  Rather than not caring about subsets other than myself, I do in fact believe that a wide variety of activities and playstyles is at the heart of Eve's 'sandbox' nature.  I would not support, for example, the introduction of game mechanics eliminating high-sec suicide ganking, although it would make my life easier and improve my bottom line.  It seems that you are arguing essentially the opposite: if a change makes some (hypothetical) players' lives easier, it ought to be introduced regardless of how it narrows the sandbox by reducing the variety of activities available to players.

You also, by your repeated references to my desire to produce Aurum, seem to have confused me with someone else. I have no desire to go into the Aurum production business, in fact, I'm not entirely sure how one would go about producing Aurum.

[Outlaw Jenner]

I must say, on an OOC level, looking at the characters, I can't quite fathom how Jade and Revan's relationship manages to work. They seem to be diametrically opposed to each other philosophically...I just can't see how that works out...I suppose love makes you blind.

Some things just aren't supposed to make sense 

[Jade Constantine]

I must say, on an OOC level, looking at the characters, I can't quite fathom how Jade and Revan's relationship manages to work. They seem to be diametrically opposed to each other philosophically...I just can't see how that works out...I suppose love makes you blind.

Some things can't really be fully-rationalized on an ooc level. Its not so much a question of love making one blind as in love not obeying the laws and rules and restrictions of intellect and convention. At to that the fact that Revan Neferis is an anarchist in denial

[Revan Neferis]

I must say, on an OOC level, looking at the characters, I can't quite fathom how Jade and Revan's relationship manages to work. They seem to be diametrically opposed to each other philosophically...I just can't see how that works out...I suppose love makes you blind.

Which adds one the most exotic and fantastic rp possibilities for both characters along these past 5 years they have been together. But truth is, Jade is a Tyrant in denial. 
And, what love judges right, hearts apply. Simple as that. There isn't much logic or reasoning applied to any of these eccentric characters. 

[Jade Constantine]

And, what love judges right, hearts apply. Simple as that.

Insane as might be is the simple truth.