DUST Search - Well, this is disturbing to say the least

Eberk Baldek wrote:

If it weren't for all the BPO gear I've had since the very first day I started playing DUST, I don't think I would have kept playing this game. I played only with militia suits for the first time for several hours one day last week and did a heck of a lot of dying. How depressing! Although I did manage a few kills, I can only imagine what it's like for first-time players. Most of the time it's too friggin' easy to kill them. But I do farm a lot of ISK with those BPO suits/weapons so I can occasionally wear Proto Gear in Corp matches. And I don't consider laying down Drop Uplinks and Nanohives to be all spam. That sounds something like what a trolling InvinciTankStomper might say. They'll never be happy unless they can just camp a slaughter-location and not have to search around for their meat. In most games, I'm able to open up other locations for spawning for the losing side. The worst thing that can happen to you is to get trapped.

Are they thinking of nerffing BPO gear too? Is that why they've mentioned it at the same time they were talking about Planetary Conquest? I'm not sure I'm all that comfortable with all the reneging that CCP does (eg: the nerffing of gear that I've spent months developing). But, at this point it wouldn't suprise me.

CRNWLLC wrote:

I think the BPO problem is solved by returning them to their former glory, possibly making more (racial variants?) of them, available to all, non-tradable, and never better than standard (except for the top-tier recruiting reward, because if you can pull that off, you deserve something extra special, you charismatic b@stard, you). This won't negatively impact the "economy" because there's pressure from the player base to run adv+ level gear (ie, other players are doing it and if they're as good as or better than you, they're likely to come out on top if they have better equipment too).


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CRNWLLC Screwy Rabbit ULC 44	Posted - 2014.02.19 19:02:00 - [1] - Quote Boy, do I have a lot say about this. Zeylon Rho wrote: Cat Merc wrote: The amount of ISK saved by BPO's is more than what is generated by Plantary Conquest. One of them "might" impact AUR sales. I'll give you guess as to which. Uh, both? Since holding districts in PC generates ISK, which is spent on non-AUR items, IGÇÖm pretty sure it also impacts AUR sales. SeriouslyGÇöanyone know the most expensive standard item on the market with a BPO equivalent? Almost certainly doesnGÇÖt cost more than about 5k, so youGÇÖve have to burn through 100s of them before youGÇÖd be getting into a 500k+ GÇ£replacementGÇ¥ cost. Just doesnGÇÖt make senseGÇöthe only people who die this much are new/bad players, and they need all the help they can get. Bethhy wrote: Blueprints even in lore where it just spawns another suit with no materials or ISK cost will never make sense no matter how convenient the operation is to my personal ISK making aspirations. Sure they make senseGÇöthe same way my Genolution GÇÿAuroralGÇÖ AU-79 implant (that grants me a golden pod, and which is automatically re-implanted in each new clone, which make it completely unlike any other implant in EVE) makes sense. It makes sense because itGÇÖs a reflection of my toonGÇÖs clout with the NPC corps of New Eden. That is, I payed CCP RL monies and this is my reward. The Robot Devil wrote: 5k deaths * Militia Assault Rifle @ 600 ISK = 3M just for the militia rifle. This is an absurd hypothetical. Not even the most banal player in Dust would die 5000 times only using militia gear. IGÇÖve been playing for almost a year and donGÇÖt even have 5000 deaths (and I do regularly)! The subject of this hypothetical deserves to pay 3m ISK for his 5000 militia AR deaths. Kristoff Atruin wrote: ... If the economy is creating far more isk than it is destroying and players get to start deciding the price of things, prices will skyrocket like we're in Weimar Germany. ...The Eve economy is well balanced and has very controlled inflation. Most economic activity is moving isk around, not generating it out of thin air. Meanwhile in Dust the isk faucet has been running at full blast. BPOs do not create ISK in the GÇ£economyGÇ¥. In fact, BPOs donGÇÖt effect the GÇ£economyGÇ¥ at all, since a player isnGÇÖt spending ISK on those standard items for which he has BPO equivalents. This saved ISK is either hoarded (ie, not effecting the economy) or spent on advanced+ gear (because why would the player spend ISK on lame gear that he has an infinite supply of? And besides, isnGÇÖt this what the CCP economists wantGÇöplayers spending ISK?). Without BPOs, such a player might spend some ISK on lame (and super cheap in any case) standard gear in order to run fits GÇ£at a profitGÇ¥, but in my experience, itGÇÖs easier to make a pretty penny running adv+. Also, Weimar GermanyGÇÖs problem was the same as the United StateGÇÖs today: deficit spending of fiat money. What do you think will happen when you spend more money than you magically pull out of your ass? I guess thatGÇÖs why you never see pirate alts running incursionsGÇª Have you seen my baseball?
CRNWLLC Screwy Rabbit ULC 46	Posted - 2014.02.20 17:58:00 - [2] - Quote Kristoff Atruin wrote: rofljavascript:insertsmiley('','/Images/Emoticons/ccp_smile.png') >"BPOs do not create ISK in the GÇ£economyGÇ¥ They don't create isk directly, but they stop isk from leaving through the sinks. That means the net effect is the addition of isk to the economy. This isn't exactly advanced math here, it's just addition and subtraction. Across all players who have and use BPOs regularly the impact should be stunningly obvious. Glad it was good for a laugh, chief, but it might be useful for you to frame the statement with its follow-up explanation. I've taken the liberty here: CRNWLLC wrote: This saved ISK is either hoarded (ie, not effecting the economy) or spent on advanced+ gear (because why would the player spend ISK on lame gear that he has an infinite supply of? And besides, isnGÇÖt this what the CCP economists wantGÇöplayers spending ISK?). Without BPOs, such a player might spend some ISK on lame (and super cheap in any case) standard gear in order to run fits GÇ£at a profitGÇ¥, but in my experience, itGÇÖs easier to make a pretty penny running adv+. What you don't seem to understand is that hoarded ISK does not create ISK in the "economy" since it is hoarded--ie, it's out of circulation. Moreover, what you seem insistent on ignoring, is that there is no actual money circulation, which precludes any serious discussion of an "economy". Until ISK and items move between players, there's no worry of inflation or deflation or any of that other pseudo-intellectual crap. Every player currently (and in the foreseeable future) has the ability to make (in theory) tens of millions of ISK a week running starter fits, so this will continue to be a non-issue. Making a lot of ISK is also accomplished by not dying a lot, which I'll come back to again in a moment. You mention that, cumulatively, the use of BPOs should be "stunningly obvious". And yet, it's not. The standard level gear that it's based on costs the same as it always has. This is true for all items in the marketplace--you don't see floating prices because there is no economy. Now consider a proto-level player (SP invested into at least one proto suit and one proto-level weapon with max support skills) that doesn't die a lot and exclusively runs adv+. Not dying a lot, this player doesn't spend much ISK, period. They've got a boatload in their wallet, and they replace a few pieces of shiney on occasion, but by-and-large, they're hoarding cash. Does this player's lack of deaths (and associated lack of ISK spending/"leaving through the sinks") hurt the "economy"? You'd think (by extension of the argument that "free" gear, which doesn't need replacing and thereby also avoids ISK spending) this would be the case, and yet it somehow rings hollow. Care to enlighten me here? You're right, though--it's not advanced math. It's not math at all. It has to do with logic and semantics. Have you seen my baseball?
CRNWLLC Screwy Rabbit ULC 46	Posted - 2014.02.20 18:14:00 - [3] - Quote Eberk Baldek wrote: If it weren't for all the BPO gear I've had since the very first day I started playing DUST, I don't think I would have kept playing this game. I played only with militia suits for the first time for several hours one day last week and did a heck of a lot of dying. How depressing! Although I did manage a few kills, I can only imagine what it's like for first-time players. Most of the time it's too friggin' easy to kill them. But I do farm a lot of ISK with those BPO suits/weapons so I can occasionally wear Proto Gear in Corp matches. And I don't consider laying down Drop Uplinks and Nanohives to be all spam. That sounds something like what a trolling InvinciTankStomper might say. They'll never be happy unless they can just camp a slaughter-location and not have to search around for their meat. In most games, I'm able to open up other locations for spawning for the losing side. The worst thing that can happen to you is to get trapped. Are they thinking of nerffing BPO gear too? Is that why they've mentioned it at the same time they were talking about Planetary Conquest? I'm not sure I'm all that comfortable with all the reneging that CCP does (eg: the nerffing of gear that I've spent months developing). But, at this point it wouldn't suprise me. Yes, yes, and YES. Glad to have another player state clearly that BPOs have been a significant part of what kept them around. I've said numerous times that BPOs can help retain new/inexperienced players. In short: CRNWLLC wrote: I think the BPO problem is solved by returning them to their former glory, possibly making more (racial variants?) of them, available to all, non-tradable, and never better than standard (except for the top-tier recruiting reward, because if you can pull that off, you deserve something extra special, you charismatic b@stard, you). This won't negatively impact the "economy" because there's pressure from the player base to run adv+ level gear (ie, other players are doing it and if they're as good as or better than you, they're likely to come out on top if they have better equipment too). Full text here, with more soap-box standing here. Have you seen my baseball?
CRNWLLC Screwy Rabbit ULC 48	Posted - 2014.02.20 23:07:00 - [4] - Quote RailTank QQ wrote: Dear everyone having a hard time understanding why the current BPOs set up is bad for the economy (as well as pc isk factories) please pull out your high school econ books and read the sections on supply and demand, scarcity of resources and and how large capital reserves affect those things. And then realize that if BPOs weren't a cluster frogking mess, the would still be sold with reckless abandon because CCP makes good money off selling them. And also trust that the doctoral, professional economists hired by CCP to observe and tinker with these economies knows perhaps far more than we do. If you still have problems understanding the complexity of this issue after all of this, be sure to have a CPA do your taxes, for your own good Now this is genuinely ROFLable! Let's trust CCP employees, not least because that's worked out so well in the past, but because they have a pretty framed piece of paper that they got for writing something that no one else will ever read! Such intellectual elitism! But never mind me, fellow players! It's not like economists and their ilk (CPAs included) have ever done anything so massively, unbelievably ******** as to seriously eff-up the lives of millions! TRUST THEM! Have you seen my baseball?
CRNWLLC Screwy Rabbit ULC 52	Posted - 2014.02.21 17:03:00 - [5] - Quote Skihids wrote: No doubt the numbers themselves are accurate, but you need to be careful about the interpretation. I'm sure their economists could explain it to them, but I'll give it a shot here: The BPO "ISK loss' is just as real as the Recording Industry's estimate of losses due to illegal downloading. In this case it would be limited to the back catalog of "B" artists as the BPOs are all low level gear. A huge amount of the downloads would never have been purchased, and it's the same way with the equipment. A good deal of usage is just to fill a slot that would otherwise go empty if I had to pay for it. Or it goes on a suit that I'll use when I'm going up against a redline situation. Or it replaces a starter fit. Or it simply keeps me in the game instead of standing around in the back waiting for the match to end. The PC ISK is equivalent to opening the till and handing out cash to their friends to buy the latest albums. One loss is theoretical and the other real (at least as real as a virtual loss can be). I think the PC analysis is spot-on, except I'd say the anti-BPO argument is even more ridiculous. The recording industry analogy is a little faulty, since illegal downloads are, well, illegal, and BPOs were purchased with an RL cash-equivalent (AUR) on the Dust market. Really, the analogy is more like purchasing a track from a media distribution service, such as the iTunes store, etc., since you can purchase it and use it (ie, listen to it) without ever having to "restock" it. That's the deal, same as the Dust marketplace. Except actually, that's not the entire scope of the situation. Since Apple and similar companies are not minting the money used to purchase these digital goods from their respective marketplaces--as is the case with CCP, ISK/AUR, and the Dust marketplace--the situation is even further removed from typical notions of an "economy". I suppose the strongest counterargument in this case would be purchases made with marketplace-specific giftcards, but even then, those giftcards are exchangeable between members of the communities to which they are sold. Dust players cannot exchange AUR or the fruits of their RL monetary investments in the game. I think the strongest part of this analysis is the admission that BPOs will keep this player in the game on certain occasions. I totally relate to this, as does at least one other poster on this thread. I'd say that this is analogous to downloading some new music (legally or otherwise, not too important for this point) and discovering you actually really like it, which leads you to download more by the same/similar artist/s (ie, try a BPO, like it, train into those skills, buy adv+ or tactical, etc., versions of those items eventually). Basically, they're a good starting point, and there will always be times when you need to return to your roots! Personally, since the cost of standard-level gear is so low, I have no problem forking over minimal SP and ISK to use standard variants of items for which I do not own BPOs (eg, nanohives), and which I have determined to be less important investments than support skills, etc. Have you seen my baseball?