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Black Market, Illegal goods, Drugs, etc...


orionbeta

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I think a black market is a great idea to sell things cheaper then the organization market (only if the organization chooses to tax members or the politics control the amount that goods can be sold at) if those two things aren't happening then a black market would be pointless in a game like this one.

Organisations WILL have to tax the people who buy from their marketplace (especially if it's a large marketpalce), otherwise they can't fund paying people to defend the system from pirates or issue bounties on certain troublemakers, and you'd bet that certain people will rub the right shoulders and get a monopoly on certain goods - and possibly tax exemption, because, hey, Capitalism Online could be the name for the Realistic Market in the game :P .

 

So yeah, if your local Monopoly Man, has the trading of ship parts' locked down and the marketplace will only allow for his stuff to be sold, you'd bet a black market would be set up via contracts, with smugglers being the pirate version of space-trucker.

 

And if anyone finds the idea of monopoly in DU as outlandish and ridiculous, just think of all those people in WoW or any other game with PVE raids, who rubbed shoulders with the raid or party leaders and got loot day after day, while you got nothing.

 

 

But hey, I haven't seen any organisation condemning monopoly, so I guess it's the Band of Outlaws' job to make sure the monopoly board if flipped every now and then :D

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  • 1 month later...

I love this topic.  If the right pieces are in place then all kinds of emergent, player-led prohibition/smuggling/black market trading can be made possible.

 

For black markets to exist you need either prohibition, high taxes, or the ability to outlaw particular people/organisations from trading in your territory or on your market units.  Plus some way for illegal trading to occur in secret (direct player to player contracts is the most obvious possibility).  Prohibition doesn't necessarily have to be of a particular product or class of products - it can be for stolen goods or goods owned by a particular player/organisation.

 

There are a couple of ways to make prohibition exist.  One way is for certain items/products/crraftables to have dual or divisive effects.  In other words, they need to be (strongly) appealing to some people and (strongly) repellant to others.  In this way you'll have something that some people want to use, while others want to abolish its use.  Another, perhaps less obvious kind of way is to have highly profitable, taxable items replaceable by something far less profitable or abundant.  This is much more complex to implement though.  It needs subtlety to ensure it is driven primarily by politics and player interactions.

 

Smuggling can exist either as a result of prohibition, or of scarcity and stockpiling.  Smuggling can go two ways - getting something into an area, or out of an area (or both).

 

Prohibiting the possession and sale of stolen goods is probably the most obvious way that smuggling will come into play, because all of the elements are already in the game, more or less.  Organisations controlling territory can prohibit the possession of stolen goods by anyone who doesn't have the, say "Security Force" tag.  If it's sophisticated enough, which I believe it is, it could even be okay to possess stolen goods originally owned by a particular set of people, i.e. a white list - it's okay to steal from these guys... or a black list - it's okay to steal, but not from these guys.  Smugglers may be trying to get goods into an area where selling stolen goods is prohibited in order to sell it on the Black Market (as described above - as Twerk says, Black Markets that have a permanent physical location aren't likely to last long...), or more likely, out of an area where it is prohibited and into an area where it isn't, so that it can be sold normally on a market unit that allows it.  Incidentally market units could also be given this kind of control, and if they're breaking the rules of the territory on which they reside then they are liable to be shut down/repossessed/destroyed by the controlling faction (it's a black market!).  After that all that's needed is some way of scanning or searching players, vehicles, and market units to see if they are in possession of prohibited goods.  And the nature of that system will determine the nature of the smuggler/customs relationship.

 

Some other ideas for particular kinds of goods that may end up being prohibited by players:

 

Weapons - there may be some types of weapons which have a damaging effect on the environment - maybe they destroy one or more kinds of a particular type of ore within a certain radius of its use, or maybe they debuff the stats of the user, and everyone nearby for a given length of time, similar to the trauma idea https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/10334-trauma-mechanics-and-emergent-gameplay-consequences/.

 

Drugs - they heavily increase some stats for a limited period of time but decrease others for a longer period of time.  They can have a cooldown timer, again similar to the trauma idea, where if you use them again within that period then the negative effects last longer.

 

Energy/fuel sources - some types of energy/fuel could have a negative effect on the environment/nearby users as with weapons above. 

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Solution (for individual groups, organizations or states): Allow everything.

 

Saves you time and resources due to not really having to control cargo and a lot more.

 

What's that? You want to be Han Solo?

 

Fear not, I'm sure many player organizations or states will still declare certain goods to be illegal or heavily monitored or regulated.

 

I see it simple so far: A "drug" could just become a combat / work / party enhancer, assuming there's no permanent negative damages or nuclear explosions upon use. Could even get some tax and profit out of it if you allow certain things on your markets.

 

But in the end that's just an outlook either way. We'll have to wait and see what weird items we may get ingame and then see how viable this whole thing is.

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Doubtless, allowing everything will be the default position of most territory-holding organisations.  Prohibition of drugs or other items will only happen if the negative consequences are great enough they somehow have a direct effect on the running of the organisation or the security of the territory.  On the other hand, prohibition of stolen goods is something that many organisations may be forced into.  Surely you wouldn't allow the possession and/or sale of goods stolen from your own people, but what about that of your allies and neighbours?

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No goods will be illegal. You people need to get some grain of real world.

No organisation will declare drugs illegal, unless using drugs may have unforeseen consequences, i.e. turning your character into a bot that the server operates for a few minutes thus emulating drug-fiend behavior. What a drug-fiend is? The junkie that attacks people. Your character goes into drug-fiend mode, that increases with use, depending on the severity of the drug.

Too grim? Probably. But it's a good reason to ban drugs as an org, as you don't want lawlessness and random PK in your planets.. Teritory units only prevent editing, they do not make your toon immune to damge. If your own people use drugs to get X boost on training skillset, and they end up as drug-fiends, that's a pretty good reason to ban drugs.

Otherwise they won't be banned - at all.

So, let's just keep Black Markets as the illegal trade they are, i.e. blockade running, does not have to be about drugs, it can be about smuggling items for a lower price in a place where monopoly and high prices dominate.

It terrifies me that most of you people can't really understand how and why black markets exist.

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No goods will be illegal. You people need to get some grain of real world.

 

No organisation will declare drugs illegal, unless using drugs may have unforeseen consequences, i.e. turning your character into a bot that the server operates for a few minutes thus emulating drug-fiend behavior. What a drug-fiend is? The junkie that attacks people. Your character goes into drug-fiend mode, that increases with use, depending on the severity of the drug.

 

Too grim? Probably. But it's a good reason to ban drugs as an org, as you don't want lawlessness and random PK in your planets.. Teritory units only prevent editing, they do not make your toon immune to damge. If your own people use drugs to get X boost on training skillset, and they end up as drug-fiends, that's a pretty good reason to ban drugs.

 

Otherwise they won't be banned - at all.

 

 

It's not a stretch to see that an energy source that causes the nearby mines to dry up might be banned.  Same with banning the sale of stolen goods.

 

Drugs is not so straight forward, but can still be done.  If a drug causes your people to be ineffective at critical moments, or has an impact on your economy, it's conceivable that they could be banned.

 

It terrifies me that most of you people can't really understand how and why black markets exist.

 

 

Are you saying that prohibition is not one of, if not the main reason that black markets exist?

 

 

So, let's just keep Black Markets as the illegal trade they are, i.e. blockade running, does not have to be about drugs, it can be about smuggling items for a lower price in a place where monopoly and high prices dominate. 

 

Absolutely agree with that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find ways for prohibition to be a thing too.

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It's not a stretch to see that an energy source that causes the nearby mines to dry up might be banned.  Same with banning the sale of stolen goods.

 

Drugs is not so straight forward, but can still be done.  If a drug causes your people to be ineffective at critical moments, or has an impact on your economy, it's conceivable that they could be banned.

 

 

Are you saying that prohibition is not one of, if not the main reason that black markets exist?

 

 

Absolutely agree with that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find ways for prohibition to be a thing too.

You ignored that part I suggested in what you quoted about drugs making you into a drug-fiend.

 

 

Also, it's not illegal to smoke in the US. It's not legal though to have tax-free smokes on sale. Where did those unregulated packs of smoke came from? You guessed it, someone smuggeld them in the country, then someone from the mob found a business owner that was interested in NOT PAYING TAXES and asked for the tax-free smokes to be delivered to him for a lower price than the taxed packs of smokes he'll have to sell. Plaster some fake taxation markers on it, and only an FBI agent woudl actually be able to tel lthe difference. Who keeps the books on that? The mob. It's a cycle of tax-free trading what Black Market is. Smugglers are glorified distribution agents, no different than truck drivers - which is what most smugglers are, truck drivers who use the cover of official contracts to deliver ilelgal goods ( some greasing may be required)

 

This aforementioned example, is what will happen in DU. You don't log in and do smuggling liek it's an NPC quest. You join in the time and day your greased customs officer is on the spot, you pay them a hefty, agreed price, and then you smuggle in your tax-free stuff you got to delvier to someone on the local market, that's not connected with the other markets in the game.

 

But you guys assume smuggelrs are Han Solos - who incidentally, is a drug-boat operator. Yes, that's what Solo delivered on the Kessel Run. Drugs, and Greedo was sent after him by the Jabba, because Solo probably snorted all the spice on his own. Chewbacca is allergic to spice, just saying.

 

Actual smugglers don't have to smuggle drugs. There are far more - illegal yet profitable - venues than drug smuggling. Drugs are just in that high of demand, even though, whne you come down to it, cocaine, crystal meth and sugar, are all made with the same, crystal method of dissolution.

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IF there are such energy sources (higher output but they damage something), I think some orgs might ban them. But those will most likely not run anywhere near such sites so...yeah that's that but I see your point.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think twerk is up for something like: there's no need to ban certain items in a game when those items don't do anything bad (like drugs that increase some stats and decrease others) so there is no real drive there to ban anything. So the only viable and true lesson here is that a black market most likely only circumvent taxes. A huge outpost might have everything you need but at a 25% increased price (because the market needs to buy fuel for the shield and pay people to run it) so some players make fortunes by importing stuff and selling it at a 15% higher price.

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Well, big orgs might invoke embargo on other orgs that has done them wrong and thus it creates the opportunity for "illegal" trade between them which would be kind of like having a black market.

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Well, big orgs might invoke embargo on other orgs that has done them wrong and thus it creates the opportunity for "illegal" trade between them which would be kind of like having a black market.

The Black on Black Market, refers to Black Money being exchanged - not regulated or dirty money. The art of turning Black Money into Clean Money is where money laundering comes in. Which is why Uwe Boll became a director, believe it or not, as germany had a "money invested into culture" law that dictated that any money invetsted into enriching German culture (movies) were to be deemed tax-free. So Uwe Boll, made a movie with a budget of 100 mill USD - which by German law were deemed tax-free - which were used to pay productions for his films on dummy corporations. The actual movie? 10 mil USD budget at best, but 90 mil of black money were squeaky clean afterwards.

 

Germany has retracted this law since 2011, which is incidentally, when Uwe Boll stopped making terrible films and graduated to BMovies (which are so bad they are good, instead of oh-god-have-mercy-on-me bad).

 

Same thing will happen in DU, especially with people who are nuts with regulating the money in circulation of their territory and will demand to see your manufacturing corporation's transactions to see if you were buying from external sources and syphoning money into black markets, instead of your local production line of refineries and miners.

 

But no worries, actual people, with actual plans for this, will be helping you out. Cooking books is the most emergent shit you can ever achieve in a video game. FBI agent gameplay for your faction is the only logical extreme after that.

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You ignored that part I suggested in what you quoted about drugs making you into a drug-fiend.

 

 

Also, it's not illegal to smoke in the US. It's not legal though to have tax-free smokes on sale. Where did those unregulated packs of smoke came from? You guessed it, someone smuggeld them in the country, then someone from the mob found a business owner that was interested in NOT PAYING TAXES and asked for the tax-free smokes to be delivered to him for a lower price than the taxed packs of smokes he'll have to sell. Plaster some fake taxation markers on it, and only an FBI agent woudl actually be able to tel lthe difference. Who keeps the books on that? The mob. It's a cycle of tax-free trading what Black Market is. Smugglers are glorified distribution agents, no different than truck drivers - which is what most smugglers are, truck drivers who use the cover of official contracts to deliver ilelgal goods ( some greasing may be required)

 

This aforementioned example, is what will happen in DU. You don't log in and do smuggling liek it's an NPC quest. You join in the time and day your greased customs officer is on the spot, you pay them a hefty, agreed price, and then you smuggle in your tax-free stuff you got to delvier to someone on the local market, that's not connected with the other markets in the game.

 

But you guys assume smuggelrs are Han Solos - who incidentally, is a drug-boat operator. Yes, that's what Solo delivered on the Kessel Run. Drugs, and Greedo was sent after him by the Jabba, because Solo probably snorted all the spice on his own. Chewbacca is allergic to spice, just saying.

 

Actual smugglers don't have to smuggle drugs. There are far more - illegal yet profitable - venues than drug smuggling. Drugs are just in that high of demand, even though, whne you come down to it, cocaine, crystal meth and sugar, are all made with the same, crystal method of dissolution.

 

I didn't mention the drug-fiend thing because I doubt NQ would consider it.  The only way you could do it is if you have toons becoming crazy NPCs when the player is offline.

 

Assuming that the primary source of a heavily taxed good is from a law-abiding organisation, that kind of tax avoidance wouldn't really be illegal unless there was a either a tax on imports/exports or a ban on importing/exporting goods altogether (none of that foreign stuff allowed).  Taxing/banning of imports/exports would probably be pretty hard but to enforce unless you have terrain on your side, or your territory is pretty small relative to the size of your border patrols.  And that's just the ground, what about flying out?  Smuggling = illegal transportation of goods across borders OR transportation of illegal goods across borders.  If it's legal it's not smuggling, it's just running trade routes/trucking.  Alternatively, if smuggling is so easy because enforcement is difficult, and everyone does it, you may as well lift the tax/ban.

 

But if you just want to avoid taxes on everything/anything, that's pretty easy.  What's required for tax avoidance to be completely illegal is a ban on direct player-player contracts.  Let me try to explain using my assumptions.

 

- Territory holding organisation sets the taxes for all trading within its borders

- Market units owners set the taxes on their own unit.  If they are law-abiding tax payers then they'll set the taxes at greater or equal to the taxes set by the territory owner.  They can set up an auto-payment to the territory owner in this way.  If they set it lower than this and don't have auto-payment of taxes set up then they'll get shut down if they are discovered.

- Player to player one-off contracts can happen anywhere and at any time as opposed to market units which are anchored to a specific location.  So tax avoidance here is easy.  No smuggling is required to avoid taxation.

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But no worries, actual people, with actual plans for this, will be helping you out. Cooking books is the most emergent shit you can ever achieve in a video game. FBI agent gameplay for your faction is the only logical extreme after that.

 

Plus one for undercover FBI agents smoking out corrupt manufacturing orgs.

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IF there are such energy sources (higher output but they damage something), I think some orgs might ban them. But those will most likely not run anywhere near such sites so...yeah that's that but I see your point.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think twerk is up for something like: there's no need to ban certain items in a game when those items don't do anything bad (like drugs that increase some stats and decrease others) so there is no real drive there to ban anything. So the only viable and true lesson here is that a black market most likely only circumvent taxes. A huge outpost might have everything you need but at a 25% increased price (because the market needs to buy fuel for the shield and pay people to run it) so some players make fortunes by importing stuff and selling it at a 15% higher price.

 

The ability to ban the possession of certain items within your borders is already planned in the game using the RDMS/tagging system.  The question is whether there will be a reason for orgs to do it.  

 

Another thought stemming from that - you might ban everyone from possessing/trading weapons bigger than a certain size unless they have a "gun licence" tag.  You give the tag out to your soldiers and police/security force plus trusted indivudals.

 

But those will most likely not run anywhere near such sites so...yeah that's that but I see your point.

 

 

Not really sure what you mean by that.

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The Black on Black Market, refers to Black Money being exchanged - not regulated or dirty money. The art of turning Black Money into Clean Money is where money laundering comes in. Which is why Uwe Boll became a director, believe it or not, as germany had a "money invested into culture" law that dictated that any money invetsted into enriching German culture (movies) were to be deemed tax-free. So Uwe Boll, made a movie with a budget of 100 mill USD - which by German law were deemed tax-free - which were used to pay productions for his films on dummy corporations. The actual movie? 10 mil USD budget at best, but 90 mil of black money were squeaky clean afterwards.

 

Germany has retracted this law since 2011, which is incidentally, when Uwe Boll stopped making terrible films and graduated to BMovies (which are so bad they are good, instead of oh-god-have-mercy-on-me bad).

 

Same thing will happen in DU, especially with people who are nuts with regulating the money in circulation of their territory and will demand to see your manufacturing corporation's transactions to see if you were buying from external sources and syphoning money into black markets, instead of your local production line of refineries and miners.

 

But no worries, actual people, with actual plans for this, will be helping you out. Cooking books is the most emergent shit you can ever achieve in a video game. FBI agent gameplay for your faction is the only logical extreme after that.

I appreciate the sentiment with the German history lesson but the last two segments are the only one worth taking with me looking at the game as a game. Also yeah, who knows what agent gameplay will bring. People doing agent work doesn't share what they do with the world right?

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I didn't mention the drug-fiend thing because I doubt NQ would consider it.  The only way you could do it is if you have toons becoming crazy NPCs when the player is offline.

 

Assuming that the primary source of a heavily taxed good is from a law-abiding organisation, that kind of tax avoidance wouldn't really be illegal unless there was a either a tax on imports/exports or a ban on importing/exporting goods altogether (none of that foreign stuff allowed).  Taxing/banning of imports/exports would probably be pretty hard but to enforce unless you have terrain on your side, or your territory is pretty small relative to the size of your border patrols.  And that's just the ground, what about flying out?  Smuggling = illegal transportation of goods across borders OR transportation of illegal goods across borders.  If it's legal it's not smuggling, it's just running trade routes/trucking.  Alternatively, if smuggling is so easy because enforcement is difficult, and everyone does it, you may as well lift the tax/ban.

 

But if you just want to avoid taxes on everything/anything, that's pretty easy.  What's required for tax avoidance to be completely illegal is a ban on direct player-player contracts.  Let me try to explain using my assumptions.

 

- Territory holding organisation sets the taxes for all trading within its borders

- Market units owners set the taxes on their own unit.  If they are law-abiding tax payers then they'll set the taxes at greater or equal to the taxes set by the territory owner.  They can set up an auto-payment to the territory owner in this way.  If they set it lower than this and don't have auto-payment of taxes set up then they'll get shut down if they are discovered.

- Player to player one-off contracts can happen anywhere and at any time as opposed to market units which are anchored to a specific location.  So tax avoidance here is easy.  No smuggling is required to avoid taxation.

Contracts still need to be validated and be pinned up. Who's gonna be the one that owns the Jobs' Board you gonna go get the contract from? An organsiation. Those people, take a part of the contact for brokering it on their boards. That happens in EVE, but the brokers are NPCs, in the DU scheme, brokers are players. Contracts != circumvention of taxation. They are just a way to sell packaged deals, isntead of one item.

 

Like, selling a ship, with this and that on it, for 90% of the price of the whole if you were to buy it on the market individually. (which is why in EVE, people who sell ships like that, are people who stole them from someone).

 

 

Also, you don't understand how monopolies work. Nobody will go and pin up a 10000000000 item sell orde for 600% of its evarege price.

 

No, they will set up 10000 difffernt sell orders, for 170% to 340%. Why? Because people are idiots and can be tricekd like sheep by the Rule of Comparison.

 

But, if I was to come in and set the price fo the item at 100% of its average price, because I :

 

1) stole it

 

or

 

2) produced it at dirt-cheap cost

 

or

 

3) was paid to do so, so I can hit the market's revenue on the monopoly and damage the trade of said economy by exploding a bubble scheme (yes, the aforementioned example I gave on price ranges == a bubble scheme, it happens all the time in EVE). 

 

All these things, require you to smuggle stuff into a market. Which is why RDMS will be like "authorize X person to be able to sell on this market" but not all. Why? Because the market owners - if they are the faction as well - will want to regulate its trade . Case in point, china enabling only a few hollywood movies a year to show in mainland China, as well as oter regulations. Talk about politics...

 

 

Also, understand that miners are going to be a Primary Sector (like farmers will, hopefully, be one day in DU). If your faction's  miners are congregated to a cartel, that sells ore at EXCESSIVE prices because :

 

1) they can

 

2) they are the monopoly

 

3) your faction's renting of mining sites to them is too heavy and they got to sell ore at higher prices to make profits

 

, importing ore from a black market may be your ONLY option in making profit in your faction. The alternative would be to move. And good luck with that. Factories, are not easy to relocate.

 

Black Markets, are NOT about illegal goods, it's about circumventing taxation and regulations.

 

As for the drug-fiend, it's the only solution to the drugs being illegal. It can accelerate your training by giving boosts to your attributes, but it holds a risk of turning you into a drug-fiend the more occasional the use is.

 

Drug boost lasts 1 day, but you get a debuff of "if you do drugs again within this time, you'll get double the chance of becoming a drug-fined on the next shot", which can stack to oblivion, but makes you into a gun-crazed psychopath inside the game, with a possible "secret" skill training  (let's call it acclamation more likely ) of being able to control your drug-fiend mode for limited time periods for the time it lasts.

 

It's a good reason why people may say "you know, it's gonna boost me, but I ay die and lose all my expensive gear and be labelled a PKr in the process" (as the other people would not be able to tell if you a bot or a person, only thing they'll see is a guy shooting them.

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I appreciate the sentiment with the German history lesson but the last two segments are the only one worth taking with me looking at the game as a game. Also yeah, who knows what agent gameplay will bring. People doing agent work doesn't share what they do with the world right?

You clearly never heard of cops going undercover. Or people infiltrating other peoples' trading joints in EVE.

 

People in EVE have set monopolies on implants in certain star systems of high-traffic. And some other pepple, knowing the markets there need more implants at lower prices, took it on themselves to set on delviering implants for mad profits by selling a, relatively, lower prices. And people infiltrated those oeprations, and took them down permanetly. There are people in EVE, who dedicate themselves into infiltrating other alliances and dismantling them by leaking intel, or good ol' heisting them.

 

So yeah, you may have to actually infiltrate some organisations yourself, for mad in-game mullas, although some people in EVE are paid mad dollars to dismantle a corporation, but good luck proving that to be true.

 

 

So no, you can't claim you are an FBI agent of your faction, without being on the field. It's an investigation, not a divination.

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You clearly never heard of cops going undercover. Or people infiltrating other peoples' trading joints in EVE.

 

People in EVE have set monopolies on implants in certain star systems of high-traffic. And some other pepple, knowing the markets there need more implants at lower prices, took it on themselves to set on delviering implants for mad profits by selling a, relatively, lower prices. And people infiltrated those oeprations, and took them down permanetly. There are people in EVE, who dedicate themselves into infiltrating other alliances and dismantling them by leaking intel, or good ol' heisting them.

 

So yeah, you may have to actually infiltrate some organisations yourself, for mad in-game mullas, although some people in EVE are paid mad dollars to dismantle a corporation, but good luck proving that to be true.

 

 

So no, you can't claim you are an FBI agent of your faction, without being on the field. It's an investigation, not a divination.

I have told you before, not saying you should remember everyone you talk with but i am not an EVE player so EVE terms and stories says nothing to me, you should take that into account that the DU player base will not only be EVE people. I have good knowledge of spy work in other games and i don't think it's fair to only look to how it works in EVE. Its way too narrow.

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I have told you before, not saying you should remember everyone you talk with but i am not an EVE player so EVE terms and stories says nothing to me, you should take that into account that the DU player base will not only be EVE people. I have good knowledge of spy work in other games and i don't think it's fair to only look to how it works in EVE. Its way too narrow.

Yeah, but EVE is the only other Single-Shard MMO out there, with a realistic economy and actual espionage and sabotage taking place. It's the only real comparison that can apply to DU as far as meta goes. If you don't do infiltration on your own, you end up doing something stupid, like being played and hiring someone to spy on your enemy, not knowing if that person is the actual enemy infiltrator that was originally sent to infiltrate your corporation.

 

Usually this ends in a hilarious situation. It's how some intelligence directors get trolled - or should I say humiliated - in EVE. It's funny. Usually people who are good at intelligence don't admit to it publicly. It makes the actual intelligence creeps come out the woodworks and actively wanting to humiliate them and ruin their reputation to the point of needing a new account and a fresh start - not usually succeeding, it is how many "spymaster wannabe" directors got griefed by being indirectly targeted by acttual black ops operatives - pirates. I mean, a roaming group of interceptors hitting the same person, across ten regions, in the span of 5 months, sounds somewhat improbable, but yet, it happens all the time. The universe is very small.

 

Meta is meta, and EVE's meta is the only one that can relate to DU's single-shard world. As the prophecy from bSG goes : "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again."

 

 

Spies will exist. Intel will be sold and exchanged. Blockade running will exist, as will blockades themselves. It's in the game's genre, it's a sandbox.

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Spies will exist. Intel will be sold and exchanged. Blockade running will exist, as will blockades themselves. It's in the game's genre, it's a sandbox.

I agree with this fully, it already happens to the extent it can without the game even being out in alpha

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I agree with this fully, it already happens to the extent it can without the game even being out in alpha

 

 

I can already see DU as the best version of Spacestation13. Too many jobs in and out of the game going for it. And it's not even in Alpha yet. Wait till accountants get to spreadsheets.

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Contracts still need to be validated and be pinned up. Who's gonna be the one that owns the Jobs' Board you gonna go get the contract from? An organsiation. Those people, take a part of the contact for brokering it on their boards. That happens in EVE, but the brokers are NPCs, in the DU scheme, brokers are players. Contracts != circumvention of taxation. They are just a way to sell packaged deals, isntead of one item.

 

Like, selling a ship, with this and that on it, for 90% of the price of the whole if you were to buy it on the market individually. (which is why in EVE, people who sell ships like that, are people who stole them from someone).

 

Contracts can be complicated but they don't have to be.  They can simply be goods exchanged for currency.  If formal advertising of contracts requires a physical location - which makes sense, then tax avoidance becomes a bit more of an effort.  You'd need to use word of mouth to form contacts then meet at a designated place and set up the contract and deal it there and then - direct player to player, no middle man or intermediate step.  No need for a formal advertising board.  This is a black market that takes some effort to deal in.  This could be done on a large scale between organisations, too, but it would be all the more difficult to avoid detection by the controlling faction.

 

Also, you don't understand how monopolies work. Nobody will go and pin up a 10000000000 item sell orde for 600% of its evarege price.

 

No, they will set up 10000 difffernt sell orders, for 170% to 340%. Why? Because people are idiots and can be tricekd like sheep by the Rule of Comparison.

 

Not sure what I said in my post that made you assume I didn't understand how monopolies work.  I understand well enough how they work.  What you describe here is how to keep a monopoly relatively hidden in an anonymous market.  Incidentally I hope the DU market is not anonymous, like the one in Eve...

 

Anyway, what's more interesting and complex is the relationship between the monopoly holding organisation, the territory holding organisation (not necessarily different entities), the punters, and how new competition is held back.  These interactions are what define how the monopoly is maintained, and the nature of any black market that may form as a result.

 

 

But, if I was to come in and set the price fo the item at 100% of its average price, because I :

 

1) stole it

 

or

 

2) produced it at dirt-cheap cost

 

or

 

3) was paid to do so, so I can hit the market's revenue on the monopoly and damage the trade of said economy by exploding a bubble scheme (yes, the aforementioned example I gave on price ranges == a bubble scheme, it happens all the time in EVE). 

 

All these things, require you to smuggle stuff into a market. Which is why RDMS will be like "authorize X person to be able to sell on this market" but not all. Why? Because the market owners - if they are the faction as well - will want to regulate its trade . Case in point, china enabling only a few hollywood movies a year to show in mainland China, as well as oter regulations. Talk about politics...

 

I agree with the bold bit.  But if you're not authorised to sell on a particular market unit then you won't be able to, you'll need to find some other way to sell it (i.e. arrange a time and place to make the trade as I say above).  The smuggling part is getting the goods across the border without being detected.  If the market unit is owned by the controlling faction your job is much harder.  If it's privately held, and they allow you to use it, then that makes things easier, but as I said previously, that would be conferring risk onto the market unit owner.

 

In any case those are definitely some very interesting interactions, especially the espionage elements...

 

 

Also, understand that miners are going to be a Primary Sector (like farmers will, hopefully, be one day in DU). If your faction's  miners are congregated to a cartel, that sells ore at EXCESSIVE prices because :

 

1) they can

 

2) they are the monopoly

 

3) your faction's renting of mining sites to them is too heavy and they got to sell ore at higher prices to make profits

 

, importing ore from a black market may be your ONLY option in making profit in your faction. The alternative would be to move. And good luck with that. Factories, are not easy to relocate.

 

Black Markets, are NOT about illegal goods, it's about circumventing taxation and regulations.

 

Black markets are about circumventing the law.  That includes trading in illegal goods.

 

As for the drug-fiend, it's the only solution to the drugs being illegal. It can accelerate your training by giving boosts to your attributes, but it holds a risk of turning you into a drug-fiend the more occasional the use is.

 

Drug boost lasts 1 day, but you get a debuff of "if you do drugs again within this time, you'll get double the chance of becoming a drug-fined on the next shot", which can stack to oblivion, but makes you into a gun-crazed psychopath inside the game, with a possible "secret" skill training  (let's call it acclamation more likely ) of being able to control your drug-fiend mode for limited time periods for the time it lasts.

 

It's a good reason why people may say "you know, it's gonna boost me, but I ay die and lose all my expensive gear and be labelled a PKr in the process" (as the other people would not be able to tell if you a bot or a person, only thing they'll see is a guy shooting them.

 

I wouldn't say it's the only solution.  And I don't think it's a viable one.  You are essentially saying that players won't be able to play for a certain length of time if they take drugs.  I'm not sure that would go down well.  I would try out less extreme ideas first and see how it plays out.

 

Let's say a single dose of a drug gives a 25% boost to all (for example) physical stats for 1 hour and then a 5% penalty to all physical stats for 5 hours, and then a cool-off period of 25 hours.  You can definitely see how combat oriented players would want to use that.  Now, if you take a second dose at some point during those 31 hours, you get a stronger bonus for a longer period of time (but with diminishing returns), but you also get a stronger penalty for a longer period of time, and a longer cool off period.

 

If your soldiers get hooked on that stuff (which is definitely conceivable!) during peace time, they might become ineffective when it really matters.  And they might be diverting too much wealth to the drug manufacturers.  You might outlaw the drug.

 

Another aspect you could look at is production techniques.  Let's say that player-characters' dead bodies can be harvested for certain materials/chemicals and used to craft drugs, or any other kind of good.  You might want to outlaw its sale and/or production in your territory to prevent cold blooded murder in and around your land.

 

You never said anything about my thoughts on stolen goods, weapons and energy sources.

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Contracts can be complicated but they don't have to be.  They can simply be goods exchanged for currency.  If formal advertising of contracts requires a physical location - which makes sense, then tax avoidance becomes a bit more of an effort.  You'd need to use word of mouth to form contacts then meet at a designated place and set up the contract and deal it there and then - direct player to player, no middle man or intermediate step.  No need for a formal advertising board.  This is a black market that takes some effort to deal in.  This could be done on a large scale between organisations, too, but it would be all the more difficult to avoid detection by the controlling faction.

 

Anyway, what's more interesting and complex is the relationship between the monopoly holding organisation, the territory holding organisation (not necessarily different entities), the punters, and how new competition is held back.  These interactions are what define how the monopoly is maintained, and the nature of any black market that may form as a result.

 

I agree with the bold bit.  But if you're not authorised to sell on a particular market unit then you won't be able to, you'll need to find some other way to sell it (i.e. arrange a time and place to make the trade as I say above).  The smuggling part is getting the goods across the border without being detected.  If the market unit is owned by the controlling faction your job is much harder.  If it's privately held, and they allow you to use it, then that makes things easier, but as I said previously, that would be conferring risk onto the market unit owner.

 

 

1) Contracts are complicated, because it's the only way to avoid scamming (yes, that also happens in EVE, idiots are robbed off all the time that way).

 

2) If DU ends up like EVE, expect the stronger mafia to find a planet with a very rare and expensive resource (like rhenium), occupying that planet and then building ships out of that rare and strong resource to have an edge, then find the next planet and set up another monopoly there. So, you see, it's a turf system. Space-mob will be the one to rule the game. Their model is akin to a rulership. You honor a call to war, or get obliterated if you don't. The perks as a monopoly holder, is you can arrange trade via barter, exchange some for some, via contracts).

 

3) Not authorised to set up SELL ORDERS, doesn't mean you can't sell directly to people who set up BUY ORDERS.

 

Example. I set up sell orders at 15000 spacebucks for Item-X, but I am also authorised to put up buy orders for Item-X on the market at 1000 spacebucks. Sell and Buy orders are not one and the seme. If another market has Buy ordes for Item-X at 500 spacebuck,s, and my market has far more traffic and a buy order for Item-X at 800, the merchant will sell on my market to me. I just am the ONLY one allowed to sell the items to individuals and the only one allowed to buy en masse. I hope this clears things. Buy and Sell Orders are not the same thing.This is where Black Markets come in also. I may want to get an Item-X at 5000 spacebucks, which is 1/3 of the price of the market's sell order, but 5 times more than the buy order, that's circumventing the status quo the monopoly has set up and since your model of the Buy Order is already attracting people to sell for you to make a Sell Oder at 1500%, means that people require Item-X at a constant basis and the Black Marketeer is there to sell you the item at the lower than average price of the sell order that you would have to buy it from the monopoly, but having to pay MORE than the monopoly pays to buy it.

 

The aforementioned example is crude, cause the Excel-Fu is an art that cannot work without actual data to plug-in. All in all, customs officers will have a blast catching and confiscating illegal traders. Try to explain to them why you are in the system loaded with stuff that should be going to the marketplace but instead you're going to populated area.

 

"I swear officer, all this Item-X you see is for personal use only."

 

"A-ha... all 1,000,000 metric tonnes of it, right? Yeah, you are not registered as a trader that's allowed to sell to the station, so, you are being borded"

 

or, if you are keeping a cool mind :

 

"Say, I got 1 billion spacebucks here saying you are nearsighted and can't tell how many tonnes of Item-X I got on my ship officer."

 

"Depends... i got two eyes, you have to bet twice."

 

"Can you open the other one when I'm on my way off the system?"

 

"Sure!"

 

Emergent Greasing of Border Control.

 

The exit price may be bigger, but hey, greasing is the "expense" of smugglers. There's no such thing as profit without cost.

 

See, all of this is gonna happen in the game. At least, with people who have been pirated in EVE enough to know how the game works when it comes to greasing the average joe and jane who are gonna take a customs security job because it's an interesting job and quite a unique one. Shit in EVE people are paid to do even more boring stuff that don't actually involve talking to people or actually playing the game.

 

The average joe gets a steady revenue from allowing you to pass through and sell. It's just inevitable, it's greed.

 

 

Also, stolen goods, weapons and energy sources, are all considered under the "produced at dirt-cheap cost" section. I am only assuming ammo costs less than 100000 m3 of ore that is. The best part about piracy, is that you have no production to upset, so you can sell at half or 75% of the market's lowest price and sell like mad. YOU make a profit. Now, the best part is, smuggling guns into a container, on-board a station that has a NO GUNS rule, then sending in your troops disguised as miners, without their guns, arming them with the guns out of the container and start a takeover of the station from the inside. That's like, Black Ops 101.

 

And yes, smugglers can deliver Death Squads. I mean, someone has to. Trojan the marketplace of the enemy by sending in a "trusty" trader that nobody will bat an eye when they shows at the stargate, but everyone will know they were a Black Ops operative, when a bunch of power armor dudes come out of their ship. I mean, technically, Death Squads deliver ammo.

 

Just don't limit Black Markets and Smugglers into "Han Solo sells drugs, we needs the games to has illegals drugzies, or illeglaz pinkflobbesnogs by NPCs". F dat shite. People will circumvent the local authorities on every posible turn - which is why I hope we see peeople actively patrolling a system to catch aspiring smugglers flat footed. Pirates are cool, but Border Control or Police are also cool things for a game. They are the same, only one has corruption and the other has rum.

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I think that initially the black markets are all going to be about tax evasion will be rather mundane. You won't have any big chases or gunfights or really anything "Han Solo-ish". It will all be done in chat channels and private trades.

 

But once the game grows and expands, and there is 1) a distinction between "core" worlds and "frontier" space and 2) a much larger playerbase there will be a lot more action packed smuggling as trade routes are secured and groups begin to have the manpower to enforce customs.

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