Its was said there were two certainties in life - Death and Taxes... unless you are a capsuleer then it's just taxes.
CCP are looking at changing the charges for various in-station services in the Citadel expansion. One of these is market taxes. NPC station orders will be going up. See here for some details.
I knew about this change from a rage filled Facebook post (are there any other types?). Station traders furious that the taxes are going up. However I don't see what the problem is. To me this is what CCP said at the start of their road map back in what? Fanfest 2012? They want players running things, not NPC's. I originally thought of Mittens as Tibus Heth and thought "Well that's not going to work". However its not that, its getting players to be doing things traditionally done by NPC systems. I see these tax changes are aimed at that. CCP want Jita 4-4 doomed. CCP do not want an NPC station as trade hub. They want a player controlled citadel as the main trade hub(s) in the game.
After Citadel release I believe many players will try and make their own "Jita 4-4". I assume the Jita system will be off limits for anchouring citadels (for load issues), but it'll be somewhere close. One of these will soon emerge the favorite just as Jita did as the NPC station of choice. This player owned citadel will likely be cheaper to trade in than 4-4 as that will have the set 5% NPC tax. The owners of the new station could have their's set at say 1.5% for the sake of this post. Over time Jita falls out of favour. It's too expensive and most people are using the more popular player Citadel. The same happens near Rens and Dodixie. Soon very few trades are done in NPC stations. It's all about player owned and more importantly, player run, citadels.
So fear not intrepid traders. This is not the news to cause fear, rage or tears. It's going to be interesting. Just imagine if it's your Citadel that replaces Jita 4-4... 1.5% of all that ISK swapping hands currently in Jita? The Forge had 280 trillion in Sept 2015 (I think it was announced at Vegas). This could equate to about 4 trillion a month to a lucky alliance/corp if they cornered the market in that region.
CCP are looking at changing the charges for various in-station services in the Citadel expansion. One of these is market taxes. NPC station orders will be going up. See here for some details.
I knew about this change from a rage filled Facebook post (are there any other types?). Station traders furious that the taxes are going up. However I don't see what the problem is. To me this is what CCP said at the start of their road map back in what? Fanfest 2012? They want players running things, not NPC's. I originally thought of Mittens as Tibus Heth and thought "Well that's not going to work". However its not that, its getting players to be doing things traditionally done by NPC systems. I see these tax changes are aimed at that. CCP want Jita 4-4 doomed. CCP do not want an NPC station as trade hub. They want a player controlled citadel as the main trade hub(s) in the game.
This then raises a more interesting question. When the Goons burn *wherever*, they could destroy the citadel that had replaced Jita 4-4. OK may be not the Goons as they are seem to be heading away from that sort of caper for some .coming reason. However PL smacked down Chribba's freeport tradestation didn't they?
That could cause a massive problem. Imagine logging on today and finding that Jita 4-4 had been destroyed!
Erm...actually, CCP, have you thought about that aspect?
I loved reading every bit of this - and I hope you like my upcoming article on CZ. I also tinfoil a little about CCP removing NPC stations.
ReplyDeleteIt'd better be good, I see you hyping it up everywhere :P.
DeleteI wonder if the only people selling in Citadels will be players in the corp/alliance that owns that Citadel. Can you imagine if you a regular player, you set up your not to shabby several billion in orders in a Citadel and then the owner decides to raises the taxes, or switch off the service, or someone comes and blows it up, people will not be happy bunnies. So I can see buyers using Citadels like mad, but sellers, not so sure. A lot of market players will go out of business or maybe start using the contract methods.
ReplyDeleteWhat pisses me off most is the 900k jump clone fiasco
V
Look, you just showed the numbers, and reason, that goons will be the ones that will control these new trading hubs. This is the biggest gift CCP has ever handed them, and there have been a lot. And as a side bonus, the RMT cartels get the pleasure of gaining another massive advantage over high sec players.
ReplyDeleteI thought that CCP had been trying to break away from the control the RMT cartels have exerted over game design. This mess clearly shows that is wrong.
LOL this will not work. Players will not move to Citadels over Jita 4-4 because no trader will put trillions of isk in a station that can be destroyed. Ok, so let's assume they will. Then they are not going to put trillions in a station where they or their customers can be locked out of at ANY time based on the whim of the owner.
ReplyDeleteAll that will happen is prices in Jita 4-4 will adjust and prices all over Eve will go up because everything is based in some way on Jita price.
Player run citadels will basically provide the same safety as a personal or corp hanger array does now on a POS. It is secure till someone comes along and ruins your day.
This is Eve. There will always be someone who does that.
I will point to the 11% tax introduced on NPC Corporations as an incentive; as precedent that the extra tax on trading will not motivate immigration to Citadels.
ReplyDeleteThe doom-sayers are predicting that the goons and like ilk will rule the game. I will not traffic with an anathema.
If you want a long, vigorous and eventually resolved debate on the topics, go to the official forum thread!
ReplyDelete(I know, first time you've ever read those words together I'm sure.)
We've, eventually, agreed that doomsaying about the Citadels is mostly incorrect, or based on faulty premises. Gevlon's 30 trillion ISK RMT Cartel is the best example of this.
1) the idea that Jita will die is absurd: the inertia of Jita means it will take forever to die. However, this doesn't mean Jita will not lose ground.
2) the increase in taxes will mean Citadels are more attractive than NPC stations. However, this doesn't mean that NPC stations don't have advantages like, you know, permanence and invulnerability.
3) the risk of loss of player assets in Highsec and Lowsec (if you don't own the Citadel is almost nil. However, you lose jump clones and your pod, as well as whatever broker's fee you had invested to list on the market. (And the other things which have been mentioned in the Devblog: building materials and so-on).
4) the incentive to burn 'player Jita-location unknown' is questionable: high time cost, low reward, loss of easy logisitics and so on. However, that doesn't mean people won't try.
I still have disagreements with CCP's tax plan: I'd wait to see the pull-factors of Citadels *before* I raised taxes, and I'd definitely not raise them *if* Citadels prove to be a success without them.
Players in the forum thread keep repeating the idea (as you did), that CCP wants Jita to be doomed (or [in their words] player run). I disagree: CCP wants players to compete *with* NPCs, but there'll always be a place for NPCs. In some aspects, they've advanced the idea of more NPC actions.
I do think that the 'Jita is doomed' idea is needlessly inflammatory. Pushing on it agitates Gevlon in ways that are surely unhelpful to his health. Resist the temptation Drackarn, resist it!