Tuesday 29 March 2016

A Golden Path for a Greedy Goblin

In Frank Herbert's Dune a revolutionary messiah conquers the Imperium and takes over the universe. In the sequels to Dune his son becomes immortal and rules as a God-Emperor, taking humanity on a delicate path between warlordism and anarchy, the sole true route towards a positive future.

My colleague in blogging, Gevlon Goblin, is in despair. Ironically at his moment of triumph - just yesterday I saw someone comment "Gevlon must be so happy."



Gevlon has leapt to the conclusion that PL has backed Goons into a corner as a bargaining chip, a way to secure for PL the prize of New Jita, an XL Citadel that gets adopted as the new player run market hub.

I do agree that a player run hub will begin replacing NPC hub trade when the Citadels patch hits at the end of April and NPC taxes rocket upwards.

I've seen some people state that they don't see why the hub would move. One word: plex. Since plex can be activated from anywhere and never need to be moved, they will get sold in the hub with 1% tax, not the hub with 6% tax. And once the plex economy moves, the rest will follow.

I don't agree that PL is plotting a high sec market hub, at least not on their mains, nor supported by the alliance as a whole (although individually I'm sure many people there make their money from trading and are keenly following developments and opportunities).

Here's my challenge to Gevlon:

DON'T QUIT EVE, RUN NEW JITA.

He has the market knowledge to succeed. He has the mercenary contacts and killboard expertise to be able to hire effective high sec troops. He has a track record of achieving the remarkable.

We're seeing in the North that when it comes to getting shit done in Eve isk just works. The Grr Goons feeling helped - people were very willing to take the isk - but people were paid to kick it all off and are still getting paid. The amount of money Gevlon has given away over the last couple of years would pay for a spectacularly effective mercenary team and if they aren't enough Gevlon has the ability to grind out billions more to hire extra mercenaries.

Change is never a reason to quit. Change is an opportunity to make your enemies quit.

Good luck!

8 comments:

  1. Citadel fights are one-grid, planned timer fights. Highsec PvP-ers wouldn't stand a chance against ANY nullsec fleet. There are no gates or mechanics to deal with, just orbit the thing and shoot it or shoot the attackers. Plus an X-large citadel alone (one gunner player) can handle anything below a 100-men fleet.

    So whoever can assemble the largest fleet will gain control New Jita. A month ago I thought Goons. Now I'm sure it's PL and its ragtag coalition with Goons being paid/intimidated into non-aggression pact.

    Once anyone gained control the citadel, he'll forever rule EVE due to the unmatched income.

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    1. In order to control it as an alliance PL would need to be able to drop whatever they are doing and rush over to defend it. I just don't see them making that their priority.

      I think we'll see a lot of violence over who gets to control New Jita and it may end up being as uncertain as who gets to control Delve.

      That said if your mind's made up sometimes it's best to draw a line under a game and try something else. I'm sure you'll find an original take on whatever you try next. Good luck!

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    2. They have to drop nothing as the vulnerability windows can be set. Also, they have to actively defend it for like a month before everyone gets the picture and give up.

      Delve is uncertain because it's one of the almost identical 40 nullsec regions. There will be 1 New Jita, with equal income than all 40 null regions combined.

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  2. I'm short on the details here. But why wouldn't PL, Goons, NC, Chribba, Gevlon, etc, etc all setup their own "New Jita" is there a max citadel limit?

    Seems to me it would be very hard to monopolize.

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    1. Historically trade hubs tend to condense down to a single very busy one. A less busy hub is lower volume which means customers don't like it so much as it costs more and doesn't stock everything.

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  3. Is it me or did everyone simply forget how to read??? The one reoccurring line in the Dev Post that matters most is:

    "As long as you are granted access by the owner..."

    I don't know about Gev or you or anyone but you can bet your sweet ass I will never do any business in a Station where a player owner can lock me out. Nope, I'll gladly pay 6% tax for the simply security of NPC stations... No, I left Nullsuc because, well it sucked but also because I lived and stored my stuff at the whim of fools... I will never do that again.

    No, if CCP is ever actually stupid enough to get rid of NPC stations totally in favor of player controlled Stations... then, TBH, I may make the move to Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen.

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    Replies
    1. Good point but I don't think it's enough. Station trade margins are often pretty thin, certainly under 6%.

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    2. Also wrt plex I don't care if you lock the station, I can still trade it remotely or redeem it.

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