My thoughts on Blog Banter #5: Meta Gaming and Multiple Accounts

I know I am not a member of CrazyKinux Eve Blog Pack, and I haven’t been invited to comment, however I felt the need to comment. And, once again, it’s been quite a long time since I have posted. I really ought to post more. Lots of stuff has gone on and many exciting things to report. I have no excuse other than I didn’t feel like. Oh I have had moments when I wanted to say something about what is going in New Eden, but I haven’t taken the time to write anything. However, the recent blog banter #5 about Meta Gaming and Alts has made encouraged me to make a few points. I’ll try to keep it short.

I am one of those of the opinion that multiple accounts do take away from the game. Do I feel like forcing this posture on other players? No not really, but I would hope to encourage other players who do have multiple accounts to use them for different purposes. The game was designed to strongly encourage team-work and player-to-player interaction by making certain activities much harder to do when performed alone by providing logistics challenges or training time limitations so that a person who wishes to become an expert in a particular field really needs to focus their time on that, and not multiple fields at once. It is designed to be more realistic in the sense that one person can only do so much.

I do however believe that Alts can and should be used to play two completely different play styles. One might have a pirate character, and another industrial character, however I would stress by this I mean that they are separate operations, not facets of the same operation to used to support each other. Perhaps even in vastly different parts of the galaxy with little to know chance of ever meeting.

Anyway that’s my take on multiple accounts. In summary, I believe that multiple accounts should be used to experience different aspects of the game, but I don’t think that alts should be used as mules. Mule here being the term coined in most MMORPG games meant to mean an alternate character used to carry stuff for the main character. This game was specifically designed to be as social as possible, and I do think mule characters are just a way to get around that. Think of the social possibilities of real reliance on other player character and organizations. For PvPing players, this can provide gaming elements to give you reason to yarr when disatisfied or disappointed as well as provide rewarding and potentially profitable elements for the friendships developed outside the Circle of Yarr (tm).

DISCLAIMER: This is only my opinion, I certainly do not wish to force my ways on others.

P.S. In this vein I have more to tell soon to be posted on the next post or two later today or tomorrow, a proposal of sorts I’d like people to consider.

Trade Wars

Well lots has gone on since I last posted.

I found myself taking an unexpected vacation for three weeks. Something happened to my communications modules, and I was unable to get information or interact with the market or any other spacer activities. Ce la Vie. Before this, everything was running pretty much business as usual. I expanded my markets to include some of the higher end minerals and was hauling several loads of minerals a day.

When I lost communications, I was stuck waiting for everything to be repaired and come back online while I was stuck drifting aimlessly. When I came back online, I found my trade routes highjacked and in control of my competition.

So begins the trade wars. You lucky miners. The price for minerals has gone up tremendously since I started the trade wars. At some points in time the price for minerals at mining outposts has exceeded the price offered for minerals at the trade hubs. Not the best situation for a trader of any level, however I didn't let that stop me. Eventually things started to settle out and the prices offered at trade hubs were increasing since the supply was dwindling. No one is going to sell minerals for less than they pay for them, and I am no different. I may take a small hit in percentage and allowing myself to just break even to continue the trade war and regain control over my regions, but I won't sell my self short.

Instead I got sneaky. In the old world market place, this would be considered illegal, it would be considered market manipulation. Here is how it works. Because I am trying to regain the market place, I increase my buy orders. However, instead of my competitors letting me do so, they are also raising their prices. As I mentioned earlier, eventually the average price for minerals at the mineral outposts was exceeding the highest prices offered at the trade hubs. I can find orders FAR out, but as you know running REALLY long trade runs is a major loss in productivity. I give up trying to beat them out, and I sit wondering for a few days how I can work this out. Then it dawns on me. Each time my competitor raises their prices, they are now offering to buy minerals for MORE than I paid for them. Hmmm. I can sell them my minerals without moving them anywhere. The profit isn't as high, and I still have to pay taxes and brokers fees for the transactions, but I am not loosing any money. I also realize I can buy minerals cheaper at the trade hubs than I can at the outposts. Couple that with a couple of good buy orders in adject low sec systems, and I find myself in a profitable situation again. I am now running minerlas TO the mining outposts at a profit.

So lets run this again. Since my competitors will NOT let me regain my systems, I keep THEIR prices high by competiting with them for buy orders. While their prices continuous are raised higher than mine, I sell them the minerals I would otherwise have brought to the trade hubs. So they are paying MORE for MY minerals, because THEY keep wanting to raise the prices. Hey they may be making a profit, or maybe not. I don't know I don't care, but they are by the very nature of the beast, by their very competition have given me an opportunity to exploit them and profit myself. As it turns out with quite a bit less work also.

I have also started buying minerals in lowsec. Not far into lowsec, just one jump in on those border systems where low sec status pilots try to sell their goods because they can't come directly into high sec. I can get minerals a lot cheaper there for sure, and when things get hard like I have described here, it can help boost those lost profits.

Its risky running into low sec, but I don't do it stupidly. I make sure the system is safe to enter before I enter, and I get out as fast as I can. And I run when someone shows up in the local channel. No need to court disaster. I have even considered purchasing a second freighter, so that if I must temporarily abondon a freighter docked in low sec, I still have a freighter in high sec for continued normal use. It's still risky, remember I never said there wasn't a risk. You however just need to not be stupid about it.

So I have learned something here, I have learned how to conduct a trade war successfully. I don't even think my competitors have a clue what's going on either. Though they may, and they may not care. And I may quite possibly be letting the cat out of the bag here, but that's a whole nother thing entirely.

Finding your first good trades

It can be difficult learning what is good to trade and when to know when you are looking at a really good buy or a really good sales opportunity. This comes with experience, but there is a tool available to help you learn and decide what those good deals are. Its called the Market Window, when you are looking at products, learn to use the detail view of the item. This will show you how much things are going to cost you and how much you can sell them for in the whole region. If an item is being sought or sold, it will show up on the detail. The way to read the detail is to look at the order details, look for the cheapest sell order for the product and make sure the item is NOT in lowsec if you are not comfortable. Now find the most expnsive buy order, also making sure it is not in lowsec. Very often the prices will be very close, but usually there will be enough of a gap to make a profit.

You have to decide whether that gap is big enough to justify making the trip or not. If you can make a deal, travel only 1 jump and profit 5 million dollars, that is probably an amazingly good deal, especially for new traders. If you have to travel through 15 jumps and you only profit 20,000 isk, although yes its a profit, it may not be worth your time. You also want to make sure that your taxes and broker's fees don't turn that 20,000 ISK gross profit into zero net profit. The fastest way to build capital (money), is to find the best deals that create the least amount of work. For instance, in my case, sometimes Jita will have a buy order which FAR exceeds the value of a local buy order for my product, and although I might make 20 millioin ISK more for a single deal, I probably will be forced to travel between 15 and 20 jumps to get to Jita. My frieghter takes nearly 1.5 hours to get to Jita from my area of operation. Then I have to return FROM jita, and that's another 1.5 hours. In that time, I can literally make 4 or 5 trips in my normal routes, and gross profit 40 million ISK each full route.

Was it worth chasing that extra 20 Million ISK? Most definately not, I probably lose between 150-250 million ISK worth of gross profit if I did that. Needless to say I have only made that longer trip two times with my freighter, and its not worth it. I lost money, and I was so bored that I fell asleep at the COMM several times that evening before docking somewhere and getting some shut-eye.

Important Skills for Trade

Trade
without this skill you are useless as a trader. You need to train this up to level 4 I think to get access to the more advanced trade skills. Each level grants you 4 more outstanding orders. Level 4 I think is the highest level I recommend until you decide otherwise in your advanced career.

Marketting
If you have an item in a station other than the one you are currently in, you need Marketting to sell it. Otherwise you have to get into your spaceship, fly to that station so that you may sell that item. Marketting allows you to do that without being forced to fly there.

Procurement
does the same thing as marketting except it is for buy orders rather than sales. It lets you place a buy order in a distant station. Note: Anyone can by something for sale anywhere in their region without Procurement. Procurement only affects placing a "BUY ORDER" it does not affect buying something that is already for sale.

Day Trading
Like Procurement and Marketing, this skill lets you "adjust" the price of orders without having to be docked at the same station as the order.

Margin Trading
lets you place a buy order even if you don't have the full amount handy. This is useful if say you want to buy 10,000 units of tritanium, but you only have the money for 7,500 units. You can still place the buy order, and while it is slowly being filled you have time to make some more money to cover the purchase. Note: you still need to have the money at the time the buy is executed, otherwise the transaction simply fails, the buy order is cancelled, and you loose your broker's fees for the full transaction. As a larger buyer, I often place many buy orders across several systems and regions knowing that I will not be able to cover all the purchases. I however have guaranteed that I will get my orders filled to whatever I "can" afford regardless of whether business is slower in one area rather than another. The broker's fees are a small fraction of my profits, and I can afford to pay those extra broker's fees as a crude form of insurance that my buys get filled somewhere.

Retail
Once you have trade to lvl4, you need to train in Retail, this increases the number of outstanding orders you can manage at once. Increases your number of outstanding orders by 8 for each level.

Visibility
When you are placing an order at the same station as the order, you can by default choose how far away you want people to be able to fill your order. For instance, if you place an order for 10,000 tritanium and set the range to Region, you will soon discover that you have a few units of tritanium scattered all over the region and you have to go pick them up. Seems like a pain in the neck and it is, but setting range is also quite useful when you only have space for one more order, and you want people in several nearby stations to be able to fill this order. Visibility provides the ability to set this range in exactly the same way but while you are setting up an order from a remote location, just procurement allows you to create remote buy orders, visibility allows you to set the range of remote orders.

Accounting
Not a "necessary" skill except that it allows you to train for Margin Trading. Accounting has no real short term value, but over time it will save your lots of ISK that would otherwise be eaten as taxes.

Broker Relations
Also not very important, it does not enable an advanced skills, but also over time can save you lots of money. Until you get into really big trades, this skill is too expensive to be worth it. ROI on this skills can be measured in month and even years unless you trade hundreds of millions of ISK per trade.

How to get started in trade

Ok well, some people that I know in game have asked how to get started in trade. Many of these people are veteran pilots who just didn't know how to have successful career in trade. There is no other career in New Eden that has the profitablility that trade offers. No single other career path can approach the profit potential of Trade. Within a few weeks, even an entry level trader can make as much as a veteran miner, pirate or mission runner if they are smart about it.

So how do you get started?

It doesn't matter if you are a new pilot or a veteran player, the basic principles of successful trade are the same. As a new player, your first task is to make some money. Without money, you cannot operate. You can make some starting money by running missions. Your first training missions are a good place to start. You can also mine, or you can even run some trade routes if you have a few ISK to work with. The key is that you develop enough ISK, to own as big a ship as possible. For trade, especially early trade, the biggest ships available will come from the Gallante Federation, however whichever race's spaceship command skills you have chosen to train will do just fine. Although the size of your cargo hold makes a big difference in your profit potential, the way you operate is profoundly more important than the size of your cargo hold. A bigger cargo hold not only allows you to make more money, it also allows you to make bigger mistakes. So other than training your Industrial Spaceship skills, you want to learn how to operate smartly on the market above everything else. Start small, buying things you can afford and selling them for a little bit more than you paid for them. You can even make money on the market without even owning a space ship, however it is much harder early on without having the money to make the market malleable.