Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Why do you gank us, we build your ships?!

One of the tiles of the infamous miner bingo is "without miners you'd have no ships". The miner bingo is a collection of typical cries of gank/bump victims. The quote is in the bingo, because it's another hilarious nonsense. Which is surprising considering that it's factually true: without miners, no one would have ships in New Eden.

Making such useful service makes one needed, valued and therefore protected. Since miners are so important, it's natural that they get protection from the ones they provide to. After all, if I try to blow up a moon miner tower, I can expect a fleet defending it.

The plight of the highsec miners is a symptom of the plight of EVE: casual players don't matter and they don't even know about it. Highsec miners are a punching bag of everyone because they are not needed for building ships. Multibox miner fleets would provide enough ore even if all the casual miners would be kicked out. Nothing shows it better than the pathetic income of highsec mining. Literally everything earns more than 8M/hour that an unboosted highsec ore Mackinaw can earn.

The miner believes that he is an important contributor to the New Eden economy, while he wouldn't be noticed if he'd be gone. This is why no one bothers to organize, help and protect them. This is why "mining corp" is a synonym of "useless lolcorp". But the miner doesn't know that mining in a solo ship is acceptable only during newbiehood and later he must change or get more accounts to turn into a multibox-monster himself.

He lacks not formal knowledge, but even the common sense of economy, he doesn't measure his activity in ISK/hour. What I mean is not to compare it with other activities and abandon it if others pay better. I mean that he doesn't realize that if he earns 8M/hour, he is considered a loser and treated that way. "Flipping burgers" isn't a term of respect. He doesn't realize that his low income places him into a despised social group that serves as nothing but punching bag. The Code is ultimately right: "Gallant recognizes his place is at the bottom of the EVE hierarchy."

CCP could help a lot to these players by creating an in-game accounting tool: you turn it on and it measures the time until turned off, and also measures all kind of direct gathering incomes: bounties, mission rewards, loot and ore gathering, LP gain and so on. The ratio of the two gives ISK/hour. It wouldn't be exact, but would give the player an impression how well he is doing.

EVE has a competitive economy. The miner doesn't know that and assumes that what he does is OK, just because it's fun. When a Catalyst pilot reminds him that it's not, he gets mad and might quit the game. Maybe the game itself should inform him about his sorry state instead and give tips and tutorials how to improve.

12 comments:

Provi Miner said...

oh gawd that would suck. Provi miner earns 500 isk an hour, why cause I only make enough to cover my nut plus a little some some for rainy days but I am on a lot. Mostly just chillin with the peeps, heck sometimes I am not even wanting to pvp and don't undock. Then there is the countless hours of when eve is on but I am no where near it. What a horrible idea. Or is this something settable like "ok start now because I am earning isk now", "stop now cause I am not earning isK"?

bluto said...

If they include the tool, I'd recommend including some sort of performance averages fro those with similar skill points who used the tool in the last day/week/month.

Gevlon said...

@Provi miner: "you turn it on and it measures the time until turned off". Counting PvP or AFK in station time into it would be idiotic.

@bluto: nice idea

Anonymous said...

"mining corp is a synonym of useless lolcorp"
but you also say that "Multibox miner fleets would provide enough ore even if all the casual miners would be kicked out"

What is the difference between 20 people mining in a mining op and 20 isboxer ships?

Solo highsec mining may be low income, but so is anything below L4 missions, and yet people still do it. The best income in game is station trading, with 0 risk, and no need to be at your keyboard, or even logged in, and yet people do not do it.

Without the casual miner, prices would rise, because the casual miners are the MIMAF crowd who keep everything ridiculously underpriced. Many of these same people do T1, which also explains how you can buy under build cost when they complete their weekly cycle.

I think there is a common fallacy that people worry about their isk/hr. If they did that, then they would trade, because, lets face it, waking up 1m/100m/1b/10b richer than when you went to sleep ,and earning isk while not even logged in is fairly good isk/hr or even isk/effort.

Gevlon said...

The difference between 20 casual miners and a 20 men multibox fleet is time. You can mine 1-2 hours per fleet and 1-2 fleets per week before having death wish.

A 20 men fleet is up 8-10 hours a day, every day, because the operator is a cliche no-lifer, a 1$/hour paid RMT employee or a bot.

The reason why casual miner mines is being dumb or uninformed.

Anonymous said...

I think you over glamorize the casual miners perception of their self worth. I was certainly under no pretensions. But it got me the initial capital to start trading and gave me trading experience. It also helped fund some other rather ill advised adventures. So it was fun. Maybe dumb but certainly fun. It was also a gank free experience except once. And that didn't end well for the aggressor for some reason I will nether understand nor care about.

Anonymous said...

"A 20 men fleet is up 8-10 hours a day, every day, because the operator is a cliche no-lifer, a 1$/hour paid RMT employee or a bot."

Na. The diffrenece is that a single miner is not so isk efficient. He can easily multibox and the efficiency will linear increasing.
No other activity you can do this that good. If you are ratting, your optimal is reached fast. But as miner, you can easily add more and more, and you are more and more effecitve since miner 2.

I know a lot multiboxer, and they are not all no-lifer. Some are casuals with "not" much time to play. But if you can make 1 plex with 1 miner per month with your online time. You can do the same with 2 plex and 2 miners, and so on. It does not matter how much you have.
So it is more fun for them to have a fleet.


but, i also think that there are many many casual solo miners in highsec. if they would not do this, we would see a difference in the market.

Anonymous said...

In one of your previous posts you mentionned what happened when the goon destroyed highsec ice mining ships. If I remember correctly, the result was a dramatic price increase, which means to me that even if few people like highsec miners, they're indeed useful to the economy and keep stuff cheap. If this is true for ice then it must be true for minerals too.

Now, you don't like highsec miners for whatever reason. Ok, we got it. But since you've said earlier that they kept prices low you can't say they don't now.

Anonymous said...

Why as a casual player must I matter? Why must I have some grand impact on the meta or the game universe? Shouldn't my enjoyment of the game really be what matters?

For example, I am an RvB pilot who flies frigs and has a mining alt to make some isk. I plsy eve casually, and am also a casual console player. I like puppies and long walks on the beach, oh and seeing space pixels blow up.

My RvB relevance is minimal. I fight, I have fun, and enjoy. Still, there's no sov, there's no income, there's no kill the blues to claim their faction base. It is simple easy access PvP I enjoy. Still, in the grand scheme another could take my place and it wouldn't matter. About my only contribution to Eve is another target for blue and a consumer of modules and ships.

As a miner, I mine to fill my wallet when bored. Each hour of mining nets me 1 more frigate to lose. I could find an alternative income, but I have no desire to spend more effort on eve. While playing CoD with friends, I mine semi-afk.

Now granted, as a PvP player, I know enough about eve to know my miner can and may be ganked. I also know I could make more missioning, but my system works.

So why should I change because my method works just because I may not have an impact or be relevant? I enjoy the game, so why is that so wrong? In other words, why does my and other's casual enjoyment of the game, including mining, bother you so much that you feel the need to blog and push for changes?

Druur Monakh said...

"[The casual miner] doesn't realize that his low income places him into a despised social group that serves as nothing but punching bag."

It's not the low income - it's the fact that he's mining in a PvP game filled with people looking for helpless targets.

Anonymous said...

So. To play "Well" I need X+2 accounts and play alone + multiboxed. where is the logic in that? besides the obvious reason: CCP cashing in. big time. Sucked everyone and their mother into believing that multi account is the way to go.
The skillsystem is by design a good excuse.

I will stay "stupidly inefficient" and pay _only one_ yearly sub and sometimes buy 2+ PLEX to sell. Because I'm no where near a true 484.63m+ isk/h on one account. Till then it's more efficient for me to flip some burgers and buy plex from that money.

Anonymous said...

I solo account jetcan in a Hulk, or mine in a Mackinaw if I really want the ore from a jetcan unsuitable system. Lost one hulk to a solo ganker in 5.5 years, saved my pod.
There's still lots of niches if you look for them.