Dodixie Pricewatch 28 April 2014

Welcome to Dodixie Pricewatch, the continuing story of a freestyle faction warrior's attempts to get his navy frigates as cheap as reasonably possible.

Fleet Firetail: 16 million (nearby Gallente space) to 11.6 million (Villore) ISK. 

Somehow no Dodixie info made it onto Eve-Central just now. The mid-May price increase may already be starting.

Navy Comet: 13.7 to 12 million ISK. 

The market for Navy Comets appears to have stopped its freefall. I'm stocking up when it gets down to 10 million. I am curious to see whether it ever will, as it is considered the best navy frigate by many. 

Hookbill: 17.7 to 17.1 million ISK (Jita). 

Okay, looks like we may have lost some visibility on Dodixie in EVE-central overall. I cannot imagine no standing orders in these. It's probably a lack of pilots in the market that are running the cache scraper application. I'll need to look into whether there is a Mac-compatible version.

Navy Slicer: 14 to 11 million ISK.

Unexpected price rise. Minmatar warzone control rise is the likely culprit, looking at dotlan. Nice.

I list the lowest sell first, followed by the highest buy. The names I use here for the navy frigates are the minimum you need to type when searching in EVE-Central to go directly to each of their pages. 

PvPermutations

I played the Diablo III story with the Crusader all the way through the new Act V, which opens adventure mode up. It's good stuff. I wish you could do Nephalem Rifts all the time. But the change of pace from Bounties and back and forth is a good thing, too. I was able to notch the difficulty up to Expert now.

Diablo is great for me because I get to fine-tune character builds while mowing down dozens of hapless NPC villains to get better loot to slaughter tougher NPCs by the dozens. It makes me feel like a bad-ass.

EVE is great for me because I get to fine-tune a character build while stalking my prey to get better loot eventually to face down more experienced players in single combat. It makes me feel like a bad-ass. Less frequently, but more intensely than Diablo for sure.

Reminds me of the saying at WotC about their main 3 game franchises back in the day:*

In Pokemon you and your friends summon cool monsters to kick each other's asses.

In Magic you summon cool monsters to kick your friend's ass.

In Dungeons and Dragons you and your friends find cool monsters and kick their asses together. 

It's always cool monsters, you and your friends, and ass-kicking.

* back in the day is usually a Thursday. Statistics don't lie.

The Jester effect

Well, well, well! I said it would happen, but I can't call it a prediction, because it was so bloody obvious. The industrial changes in a recent Devblog have inspired some fevered commentary: Mabrick on Eve24 and Jester are the posts that got most dramatic about it that I've found. 

Having followed His Jestership for some time, almost as long as I've played EVE, which isn't that long, but it's kind of long. I'd say solidly, medium long. I'll start again. Jester tends to get into a certain kind of trouble as a CSM member who blogs. I see something similar happen with Malcanis on Failheap. 

The Jester effect: when someone is more articulate than average about why things happen like they do, (s)his listeners tend to hallucinate that (s)he has control over what is happening. 

A textbook example is when someone comments: "I agree with you, Jester, that there is a problem. So why didn't you push for a solution harder?" As if all he had to do was buy CCP Fozzie another drink and it would have turned out totally different. 

Ancillary sub-effects of the Jester effect include people blaming Jester when things don't happen the way they like, and people attaching their own tangential issues to whatever Jester happens to be posting on. His latest about the upcoming industrial rejiggering has attracted a lot of discussion on force projection in null-sec, for example. Quite frequently they take a confrontational tone with Jester while accidentally reiterating Jester's original thoughts, somehow forgotten between reply and publish. 

As far as the actual Devblog at issue goes, people always want contradictory things. I'm a totally amateur game designer and I know that. CCP has to know that. It's always better to shake things up. If they really want to shake things up, maybe they can stop letting people multibox and have alts out the ass. 

See? I kinda just did it there.

Further, it has become the habit in these debates to indirectly threaten to rage-quit if one's preferred solution is not implemented.* This is usually phrased as a concern over CCP losing subscriptions. It is simply a threat. Do not be fooled by the concern-for-CCP's business wrapping it comes in. And as we have learned from shysters the world over, threats are meant to make you choose things that are against your interest.

* or the inverse, being if one's not-preferred solution is implemented.

Dodixie Pricewatch 21 April 2014

I fly and trade navy frigates a lot. And Dodixie rules.

Fleet Firetail: 13.7 to 11.5 million ISK. 

Firetails are still channeling between 9 and 15 million. It seems to take about two months for supplies to run out and the price to spike when warzone control is in the doldrums, so I think it'll happen by mid-May. To buy would be a speculative play. Patient money would want the price lower first, which I don't expect to happen this time around.

Navy Comet: 13.4 to 11.3 million ISK. 

Gyuh! 2 million down in one week. The market for Navy Comets continues to be absolutely flooded. I'm stocking up when it gets down to 10.

This, by the way, is why I only trade things that I use. That way I'm not totally holding the bag when this kind of freefall happens. I have about 50 comets right now. When I got them through the LP store the price was about 18 million and I had been getting 20. I sold a few but it all turned around so freaking fast, what with the Police frigate spike giving out and the Gallente warzone control tier shooting up.

Hookbill: 20 to 17 million ISK. 

Hookbills are about 2 million ISK more expensive than last week--again. Expect them to remain elevated until the Caldari militia gets another infusion of ex-null funsters like when TEST came to their aid. I'd be kind of curious to research whether faction frigates ever sell for more than analogous Tech 2 frigates.

Navy Slicer: 13 to 9 million ISK.

Daily volatility increased over last week at this time. Looks like they had a minor spike over the trend line I've been drawing. Perhaps it has something to do with how bloody far Amarr space is away from Dodixie. The fundamentals of warzone control don't bode well for the price going higher. That said, the Navy Slicers continue their slow decline in price. I'm not sure the volume is high enough to day-trade this. I wouldn't, because I'm not in Dodixie quite often enough.

I list the lowest sell first, followed by the highest buy. The names I use here for the navy frigates are the minimum you need to type when searching in EVE-Central to go directly to each of their pages. 

Bittervet

I just noticed something. I've been playing the Diablo III for a couple weeks, since they patched the game to make it compatible with the Reaper o' Souls expansion. I bought the RoS over the weekend, and if playing the new Crusader class is wrong, I don't want to be right. Shield Bash might be my favorite skill ever. It's like the Monk's Dashing Strike but decidedly more bashy. So it definitely delivers on expectations. 

What I noticed, though, was that I basically log into EVE every couple of days to check my market orders, plex a little, and make sure my skill queue is updated. 

Wow. I'm turning into a bittervet and I've only been playing 18 months. I learn quick!

I don't know of a recorded, official definition of bittervet, but I've gathered from context that it involves EVE turning from a game into a hobby. It's not played for hours at a time for entertainment, but rather as a series of tasks you check on every so often but run by themselves, much like a glue join on a wooden model drying in a vise clamp down in the shop. Eventually you feel like you accomplished something. 

There's also the bit where the bittervet feels like EVE was great when they first started but has been going downhill since. Kind of like Saturday Night Live or MAD magazine or The New Yorker. I do not feel that way in regards to EVE. I am bullish on the development direction it is taking right now, for what that's worth. 

So back to D3. The Crusader actually agrees with the Templar in their little conversational snippets. That's nice for a change. Templar is my favorite companion. I love how he's simply gung-ho about killing demons for the most part. That, and his rare queries regarding the Enchantress, coupled with unsolicited explanation that his interest in her is totally platonic. Lush/Lout/Letch, I mean Scoundrel, just gets old really quick in my book. My Barbarian travels with him, because knowing that he could totally break him in half makes the babble tolerable. My Wizard travels with the Enchantress because sisterhood. Everyone else rolls with the Templar. 

BB #55: Fa-aaaame (fame!)

Blog Banter time! 

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Last Blog Banter we talked about heroes in EVE Online. The followup to that topic has been provided by Wilhelm aka The Ancient Gaming Noob:

Write about somebody who is "space famous" and why you hate/admire them, somebody who isn't space famous but you think should be or will be, or discuss space fame in general, what it means, and how people end up so famous.

Is there a cost of being famous in EVE and if so, is it worth the price?

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Like: Ripard Teg, Rixx Javixx, Malcanis, Sugar Kyle, I'm probably misspelling Javixx, The gang on Failheap, X Gallentius, Garviel.

Not so much: Gevlon Goblin, the peanut gallery on EVE-24.

Grudging respect: Anyone in Goons, Dinnsdale Pirhanna.

Fame and infamy are kind of random. The state of human knowledge about it is that you can best model it by the science of networks. That's beyond my ken (let alone my barbie). The upshot is that we can see how fame happens in retrospect but it is only marginally easier to predict once you learn all that science. Hard work usually matters toward becoming recognized for it. Usually. Some are born famous, others become famous, and some have fame thrust upon them like a Kardashian's* big ol' butt. 

I am not famous. I have more name recognition in EVE from my wise-ass commentary in militia chat than I do from the blog. Also, people who are hitting the "Next blog" link almost certainly account for at least half my readership. Turns out my EVE handle is also the name of an oil tanker. I can't tell whether that hurts or helps. :)

The usual bang of idiots on Failheap Challenge are better-known PVPers than me, that's for sure. Those who are willing to share PVP knowledge are those I like the best, especially those who will part with their ship fits. It takes some 'nads to do that. It can be used against you later. Unless you can create faster than others can steal, you're asking for trouble.

* I totally had them confused with the alien race in DS9 at first.

Dodixie Pricewatch 14 April 2014

I fly navy frigates a lot. I like to see how they're doing at my favorite trade hub. 

Fleet Firetail: 13.7 to 12.3 million ISK. 

I am thinking we should expect the price to channel between 9 and 15 million for a while. It seems to take about two months for supplies to run out and the price to spike when warzone control is in the doldrums, so I think it'll happen by mid-May. I don't think it will go totally wild from there. 

Navy Comet: 15.3 to 13 million ISK. 

The market for Navy Comets continues to be absolutely flooded. Tier3 for Gallente Militia just happened. I will probably not be putting my sell orders back when they expire. I got like infinity of these at scout camp, so I'll just fly them when my Firetails run out. 

Hookbill: 18.3 to 16 million ISK. 

Houston, the bird has squirted. Hookbills are about 2 million ISK more expensive than last week. Expect them to remain elevated until the Caldari militia gets another infusion of ex-null funsters like when TEST came to their aid. 

Navy Slicer: 12.5 to 9 million ISK. Most volatile this week.

No change here over last week, except for some daily volatility. Navy Slicers continue their slow decline in price. On aggregate, at least in Dodixie, they are losing about a million ISK in price every two months.

I list the lowest sell first, followed by the highest buy. The names I use here for the navy frigates are the minimum you need to type when searching in EVE-Central to go directly to each of their pages.