EVE-Mag.com

Insurgence of Customs Officers – Or How To Evict Your Tenants

Published on 08. Feb, 2009 ... written by Gavriel, Tags: Articles

With this article, we’re getting closer to a subject I really like to discuss. See, I’m a bit of a “conspiracy theorist” in real-life, and I like to watch all these documentaries about how the world is actually hiding incredible yet undeniable truths… (take the movie Zeitgeist, for example).

Now, it has to be clear to you that I’m not trying to get everybody to think like me, and I hate preaching to everyone. I like teaching, though… that’s something I’ve done in the past in my professional life, and in corp life I’ve now inherited the position of Training Officer, which is basically to have noobs follow
me around, and learn tricks of the trade. That said, convincing everyone to think like me is not something I want to do. I just like to pass the message, and especially I love to keep the dialog going… see where it leads.

But I usually keep real-life and Eve-Online play as 2 separate things (although I will say that hanging out with my corpmates, having a beer or two and watching the game with them is pretty cool). But then it had been a while that I hadn’t read Eve-Mag.com, and what should I happen to read… an article by my compadre Sunforge, who wrote about Tax Havens: Zero Rating Low Sec Tax.

Boy did THAT give a jolt to my inspiration.

Setting the record straight

As of late, I’d become more and more interested in the trading aspect of Eve, especially since I’d read all the different economic reports put together by a real-life economist, who is studying Eve as a sort of a self-contained, self-sustained economy. The idea of this really appealed to me, and I started to delve a little more into all this, including Sunforge’s article.

So here’s what I have to say about that.

First of all, the “tax” he’s referring to is not a tax per se. It’s a trade expense you need to pay to the system so that you can do the things you want. For example, every time you put in a request to sell anything, the system has to charge you for supporting the transaction, and in two ways: whoever put the item on sale had to publicize that the item is for sale, and therefore using the Eve Market system costs money. As for the buyer, he doesn’t pay for anything – you’re already paying for an item, right?

But keep in mind that there’s a charge for creating a Contract for the sale of an item as well, and it’s a fixed charge – it doesn’t change with the amount of time you leave it up in the Contracts database.

Second – creating corporations, alliances, medals, insurance, clones, just basically about anything you can use that comes from the game system itself, you really have to pay for. There seems to be an inherent charge laid out for you to pay, and it’s pay-per-use. At least most of the time.

Finally, when you do get to the actual tax, this tax is charged by whatever corporation you belong to, and you have the power to decide whether you pay a tax or not – at least, when you’re a shareholder or a title-holding member of the corp. Corporations exist to make a dollar for everyone inside it. It’s not there to empty your pockets. So when you’re taxed, you know what the corp does with your tax money (as opposed to the federal government using your tax money and not telling you how). This depends on the corp, really… but in all honesty, you can’t really dispute the fact that Eve is a fair and even playground for everyone who plays. The taxing system is there to support whatever structure and endeavor any corporation wants to support. Taxation is a fair system to support all that, in the sense that it takes a percentage of whatever you make – which is fair to all.

For security reasons

Sunforge’s article was suggesting that “tax” (as he calls it) should be eliminated from the system of play in null-sec space. Well, if this were possible, everyone would rush to null-sec (me first) to put together all their contracts and sell their products. That would certainly make the game more profitable for every pirate in the game, because whoever goes from hi-sec to null-sec almost certainly has to go through low-sec to get there – where pirates mostly band. And since according to his stats about 78% of the Eve population lives in hi-sec…. this is really a way to cause a massive exodus to low-sec space and de-balance the game entirely.

While I do think it is desirable to have more people in low-sec and null-sec, I don’t think this is the way to go about it. If CCP changed the service fee system in null-sec, this would probably cause an exodus of hi-sec inhabitants, most of them would get picked off on their way through low-sec, and while most people would not survive the immediate change of venue, sooner or later another type of gameplay would install itself in null-sec. Whatever sovereignty is currently there would see its days come to an end, falling under the weight of capitalism and inexperience reaching null-sec too fast… I think this would shift the balance of the game too rapidly, too profoundly. You want things to transition smoothly… even with the upcoming Apocrypha expansion, bringing wormhole exploration to Eve, this is still (to me) a slow seeding of the new stuff injected in the game. And that’s a good thing.

Hi-sec, low-sec, null-sec, New-sec

Aside from taxation & fees, the presence of CONCORD is currently the only thing that readily defines hi-sec space as being “high security”; as we all know, the higher the security status of a system, the more dangerous it should be for pirates to be on the prowl. The security level has shaped the face of New Eden more than any other factor – indeed, the higher the security, the safer it is for newbie players. This largely contributes to the presence of almost 78% of all players in hi-sec space.

One bad thing I can say about this game – it’s unbalanced and somewhat undefined in its security. While you do get a sense that CCP has tried to put a sec value to each solar system, you don’t get a sense that each system from 1.0 to 0.5 has its own level of security. As soon as you enter 0.4 space, this is where it gets rough – and it gets rough real fast. So there’s really 3 levels (hi, low & null) of security, not 10. This is where the flaw resides.

While I think CONCORD should remain the defining element in terms of security in Eve, there should be more done within this system. One blatant example is customs. By getting rid of the obligation to approach any Stargate on standard propulsion when CCP added the “Warp to 0″ navigation option, there’s not enough time for any customs officer ship to scan the contents of any cargo bay. I therefore suggest that a new customs system should be implanted within the game.

Here’s an outline of my plan:

• each system – or better yet, each Stargate – has mandatory searches by Customs officials, under supervision of CONCORD – whoever doesn’t submit can get shot down. These searches could be randomized, but let me point out that I’ve never been asked about the frequent amounts of illegal drugs I find in mission loot – this must end, especially in higher security space (0.8-0.9-1.0);
• any freight carried through different gates leading to different systems should be charged… kind of like a toll booth. Whatever you carry in your cargo, you should have to pay a fee for, per volume unit. If you’re piloting a freighter, it’ll probably be beneficial to come out from low-sec or null-sec with it and go to Jita to sell it at a high profit; but as you near the higher security regions, your freight costs more to carry around, makes you think twice. But for anyone leaving hi-sec, you progressively pay less as you go through gates towards null-sec;
• with the presence of CONCORD and customs in hi-sec, you’ll tend to gravitate towards hi-sec to manufacture and produce items to sell… with the lesser tolls in low-sec, you’ll probably want to go there as well to save a few bucks, make more profit. With no tolls in null-sec… chances are much higher you’ll want to be there to sell stuff, manufacture stuff, and so on, instead of just being there and protecting your territory. But without the presence of CONCORD, as always… it’s a risky call.

I imagine that this doesn’t sound too different from the currently existing system…but it certainly can help further define (or “refine”, no pun intended) the security levels of Eve space.

And finally… this can help spare Eve from a problem it has coming – the disappearance of RARITY of ISK. See, this is a comment I made to Sunforge’s article. ISK comes from an ever-lasting spring: missioning and mining. I guess you can probably say DED pays you your bounty money, and whoever issues the mission pays your reward – but since this is done by use of NPCs, the system therefore is everlasting. It’s like the spring of everlasting youth.

You can also mine – asteroids deplete, you bring the mineral back home, refine it (at a cost) and then sell it. The asteroid field then re-spawns, and poof – instant cash source again.

Problem with this is that sooner or later, Eve players will exist in many more numbers (hopefully), and they will all mine, mission and dig up more ways of making ISK. Of course, more players means a greater need for riches; people need to be able to access ISK to buy stuff, or the game won’t be fun anymore, but sooner or later the price of everything will be diminished because almost everyone will have an increased buying power.

More money per capita means more buying power – and that needs to be stabilized, otherwise items will be too easily purchased by everyone. All players would have enough cash to donate 10 million ISK to every new player, giving them instant access to every piece of ‘named’ equipment. To keep things even, fair, and balanced, you must either raise the prices of everything (something called “inflation”), or find a way to create more rarity, in which case I suggest you read the above-mentioned suggestion.

My proposition would be a very easy way to control this situation, as well as control how many people should be in hi-sec, low-sec, and null-sec.

Deeper than space

Not only that, but it also adds a new dimension to the game, and it can certainly give way to many storylines… it could actually create a single unifying goal for players (yes, I know you have no idea what I’m talking about, so here’s my idea.) Imagine a long-disappeared race of people, stuck inside a wormhole themselves… and one day it opens up, they come out, and their 2 warring factions separate. The one on the righteous side sets up a system to collect money to fight the other faction by setting up at every gate in the galaxy and collecting tolls. This would finance their war against the other faction.

Meanwhile, the other faction goes medieval on every one in null-sec, and people from hi-sec who are in Faction Warfare can get sent on missions to null-sec to try and fend off the invaders. Not bad, huh?

I should be a writer for CCP

Seriously, this is a proposition I would love to bring to CCP. Anyone else has any suggestions? Problems with mine? Comments? Or better yet – can you expand on the ideas mentioned here?

Let’s see what you’re all made of.
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• http://www.eve-mag.com/wordpress/archives/tax-havens-zero-rating-low-sec-tax

Tags: CONCORD, conspiracy, customs, economy, security