Kristoff Atruin
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
2005
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Posted - 2014.04.04 13:33:00 -
[1] - Quote
I think this is why they hired someone to deal specifically with monetization. I've thought about this once in a while but I never seem to figure out how aur gear could work with an economy where gear is manufactured. Not that a player market will start with manufactured gear, but I'm pretty sure that's one of the goals since it's the big thing that gives Eve players attachment to the things they own and drives the economic engine that creates all the drama.
In Eve if there's one thing that is sacrosanct it's that CCP won't interfere with the economy aside from trying to keep inflation to a manageable level. Creating items out of thin air that players can make interferes with the economy and directly competes with the players who are making them, so they always try to limit this to small scale event rewards etc and tend to give things that no player can make or are completely new to the world. Even the FW LP stores in Eve require a regular item of the same type as you're buying with LP so that they aren't competing with players. For example, if you wanted to buy a federation specialist duvolle AR from the LP store you'd need the 150 LP or whatever it is AND a duvolle rifle in your inventory to purchase it.
AUR gear goes completely against this principle. I suspect what will happen is that when the player market arrives the infinite NPC sell orders which create unlimited gear out of thin air will still exist, creating a ceiling on prices. AUR gear will still exist because they're only really competing with themselves, and the average price of most items will be a little bit lower than what we pay today because of people selling salvage that they can't use. Eventually they'll take a few items off of the market, including the AUR variants, and make it so that players (either in Eve or Dust, to be determined) will build them. I think that the AUR variants will still exist, but as a modification that you apply to an existing item you own like how the LP stores in Eve work. When items become fully player made you won't be able to directly pay to play. If you don't have any ISK and don't want to earn it grinding pubs in starter fits what you'll need to do is buy boosters with your AUR and sell them on the market for ISK.
This process is basically how the economy in Eve evolved. They started off with all the basic gear being available from NPC sell orders and gradually started giving players more and more control over the economy. This allowed them to adjust the cost of things by influencing how difficult they were to make and insulate the economy from supply shocks. |