Eve Online "Businesses"

Marky

Marky

Marky

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Hey all,

I just read:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17809814

And was curious about the Eve world...
Ive played many different MMORPGs, and Ive always enjoyed trading in them. I used to be a long time subscriber of SWG before they made the changes, and I was a trader in that. It was defiantly my favourite game, and is still my favourite MMORPG (I mean the previous version, not the hideousness that it is today :()

Nevertheless, no other MMORPG has matched up to the tradings of SWG...

So, back to Eve Online, the article got me wondering on Eve Online "Businesses". I have heard before that trading is a large portion of Eve Online...

What sort of businesses are there in Eve? What sort of features facilitate to these businesses?
If you are able to tell me a little more about the trading side of things I'd be very grateful indeed ;)

Marky
 
Ok going to start very basic but will give you the picture.

All ships are fitted with modules:

Tech 1 modules, anyone can buy the blueprints for these, and with a few skills produce them and compete with every other player out there to sell them. Trading markups can be made either through production and selling or buying them and selling them elsewhere in the universe for higher prices.

Tech 2 modules, the standard fitting for an acomplished player, these modules can be built but requiring a much harder production line, invention, or through blueprints (but these aren't freely available and are expensive).
Trading opportunity by moving these modules from one place to another and reselling for a markup.

Named modules (meta), these only drop from NPC space rats, although most are a lesser standard than tech 2 modules they can be highly desirable and a trade commodity as they require less skills and less fitting constraints than t2 modules.

Cosmos faction and officer modules, like named stuff, they only drop from NPCs, and are rare, I don't play wow but I guess its like epic stuff. Highly tradeable commodity as you can resell for a big markup.

There are NPC seeded trade goods, useless to anyone, however the game has default buy and sell orders that you can exploit to your advantage to make money.

Fuels. Player owned stations, ammunition, cap charges, jump fuel, cynogenerator fuel, are all tradeable assets as you can buy them cheap somewhere and sell them for high profit out in lowsec and outlaw space where they are highly desired and not so frequently sourced, big risk big payout trading.

Otherwise you can launch an IPO, buy stocks and shares in other people's corporations, player poker for ingame currency.

You can mine asteroids for money, you can hunt NPCs for their bounty.

You can hunt players in empire space through wardecs, or in lowsec space via piracy, or out in 0.0 where anything goes, and if you're good, you'll make more money from their space loot to cover your own losses.

The official eve forums have a market discussion forum: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=3515
 
This may or may not be a useful post... but if I were to get in to trading in a game, I would do it in a MMORPG such as Second Life, where you're allowed to make real life money via the in-game currency :) But if that's not your aim then yeah, I'd tell you about eve trading if I knew anything about it :p. Just thought I'd mention it. Eve will be much more fun than Second Life though!
 
wow the economy sounds huge! i never knew it was that involved before (i used to play along time ago) hmm sounds very interesting indeed as you can tell i didn't really get in to it.
 
The whole game revolves around the market which is greatly influenced by players.

Purchasing ships and modules to selling minerals and ore, the markets fluctuate due to supply and demand making trading a neat income from shipping goods around the regional markets.

Its easy to start small with low risk, but low reward trades by moving bulk cheap goods to other regions for small mark-ups, making a small profit.

Or you can play it big, by investing millions/billions in construction and research, making sure you don't flood the market and reducing the prices but instead looking for high demand areas, or striking deals with corporations and alliances.
 
Ice Globe said:
The whole game revolves around the market which is greatly influenced by players.

Purchasing ships and modules to selling minerals and ore, the markets fluctuate due to supply and demand making trading a neat income from shipping goods around the regional markets.

Its easy to start small with low risk, but low reward trades by moving bulk cheap goods to other regions for small mark-ups, making a small profit.

Or you can play it big, by investing millions/billions in construction and research, making sure you don't flood the market and reducing the prices but instead looking for high demand areas, or striking deals with corporations and alliances.
Click to expand...

But as a novice at the start , can you just jump in and play big right away? or will it take a couple of weeks to learn skills etc? + get money n ships etc?
 
Mp4 said:
But as a novice at the start , can you just jump in and play big right away? or will it take a couple of weeks to learn skills etc? + get money n ships etc?
Click to expand...

You can start trading from the go, using the ship you are given and small modules on the market.

But on a personal scale, no it won't be possible to jump in with the big fish straight away.

Everyone has to start from somewhere and then build up. For combat, you'll start small with frigates and work up to battleships. For construction, you'll be starting small with ammo and small modules and working up to ship production. For trade, you'll have to start in small volumes, as you won't have the assets to buy and then move large expensive goods. Normally players find more profitable methods of getting money in the bank, and then they can invest and trade for greater profits.

However, as a new player, just trading for small profits will be addictive and inspiring. And you can always participate in a corporation or alliance to be part of the big picture.
 
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If you want to start by trading, you can pick a character that right off the bat can do like 50 trade orders and already has market transaction cost reducing skills trained.

Trading is probably the least in game skill training activity to profit ratio. You are limited by your personal ability to spot a good trade rather than the combat aspect for example, where you are going to be a fair way behind players who have been here since beta.

If you set reasonable goals then yes you can get right in there on your first day of eve and make 100x more money than an equivalent new player would make mining asteroids.

You just need to find margins that work with your small starting capital and be ready to explore what makes you profit.
 
I have to say the construction side of the game sounds quite fun , when i played last i went in to just doing missions from npc's and just went 2 and throw doing missions as i didn't know anyone else that played eve i got quite bored :/ so gave up & went to another mmorpg.

quite tempted to start again :D
 
A quote from the NY Times should give you an idea about how developed the market/economy is in eve '..what other game has a Ph.D. economist on the staff who publishes a quarterly newsletter about the game’s virtual economy?'
 
Anim said:
A quote from the NY Times should give you an idea about how developed the market/economy is in eve '..what other game has a Ph.D. economist on the staff who publishes a quarterly newsletter about the game’s virtual economy?'
Click to expand...
That was particularly impressive I must say!

Has anyone actually made a business in Eve? I.e. Hiring other players to mine etc?

furnace said:
This may or may not be a useful post... but if I were to get in to trading in a game, I would do it in a MMORPG such as Second Life, where you're allowed to make real life money via the in-game currency But if that's not your aim then yeah, I'd tell you about eve trading if I knew anything about it . Just thought I'd mention it. Eve will be much more fun than Second Life though!
Click to expand...

I tried a trial of Second Life a while ago, and it is without a doubt the buggiest game I've ever come across! Oh and it's very wierd and full of naughty things lol :p
 
The problem you will have is that the skill training in EvE is realtime, more skills make EVERYTHING better. So, mining, refining, even blueprints can be made more efficient, building, research and even selling and buying are affected by tax.

Competition is stiff and although there are regional markets (good for trade) everyone sells stuff in the same few places. JITA! so you will find it hard to make a profit at 1st.

I advise playing the game for a little while and work out what is exactly involved before you start. Join a corp. OCUK have one, www.oc-ps.co.uk
 
Depending on when you guys played, and whether you ever bought faction loot, you may well have had a run in with myself, Thoth Athena. Had great success in trading on my own, then tried trading in a corp for a bit (with Murakin Shio, if you know him), and then went back to trading singly.

There are always ways of making money. The thing with trading faction loot, as I did, is that you need money to make money. I made enough ingame ISK to keep 3 accounts running, buy several characters, and at any given time I'd have about 5-10bn tied up in assets. I played for about 3 and a half months, and when I quit and liquidated my assets to give to people who had helped me when I started out as a newb in my ship etc, I had a wealth of around 14bn.

There's ALWAYS a way to make money in Eve, you just have to spot it and get there first.
 
Also as for not being able to make real money legally, well you kind of can. ISK -> GameTimeCard -> real money.

I dunno why CCP allow the buying of game time cards for isk, suerly they can't pay theleccy bill in isk, and they can make as much isk as they like, they have /root. I thought they were trying to stop Bots etc.

If anyone can explain please do.
 
VaderDSL said:
people buying GTC for isk, the GTC's are still bought from CCP with hard cash afaik, either way CCP get the cash.
Click to expand...

Correct. One way or another CCP get the subs. It's just a question as to whether you pay them, or you get some other mug to pay them for you ;)
 
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