Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

"Your trading reports are fakes!"

Some commenters figured out a "clever" way to counter my "elite PvP can easily be faked" article: "faking elite trading is just as easy." So how can I prove that I'm indeed an elite trader and not just faking it by PLEXing thousands of real $s I earned flipping burgers or by farming L4s 12 hours a day?

The answer is simply: I can't. There is no way I can prove that I'm an elite trader. Which isn't much of a problem since "elite trader" is a term I never used. I never claimed that I have "skillz" in trading. I claimed that the methods I displayed work. The point of my blog isn't "look at me, I'm awesome" but "look at economics, it's awesome" and "look at a-social thinking, it's awesome". I detailed my methods to the last bit, making you able to fully reproduce them. You can judge them after your knowledge of economics, or simply by trying it out and seeing for yourself. Actually, if I really never traded and got my ISK by PLEX-ing, would any of my post less true or relevant? If I never hauled a single Drug Manufacturing skillbook from nullsec to Jita, would it magically lose profitability?

The main problem with "elite PvP" videos and stories isn't being fakes, but being utterly useless and serving no other purpose than bragging even if not fakes. They - purposefully - omit the important pieces of information and make the viewers believe that the situation was solved by "l33t skillz" instead of applying basic knowledge. The key of winning the encounter isn't what on the video (how he piloted) but what's hidden: he had a scanner alt on 3 gates earlier, so he knew the weakness of the target. Instead of teaching people to have scanner alts and how to design a hard counter which is also cheap, he acts like he wouldn't be piloting the hard counter and won an uphill fight by "skillz".

"Skillz" do not exist. Knowledge exist. Since anyone (besides morons and slackers) can learn, anyone can perform on that level. Again: I believe anyone can earn equal ISK as me. If anyone can do it, it's not "elite" and the performers are not "awesome", just ordinary guys who read the available information. Those who babble about "skillz" and "elite" are trying to hide the relevant information and act like the success is based on something inherently present in their person, something only a few "elite" possess and it can only be gained trough "experience" and by "learning from the best". Bullshit, bragging and faking, that's all!

If you choose to believe that economics doesn't work, the best way of gaining ISK is ratting day and night and I'm ratting too to get ISK, be my guest. Don't forget to buy some implants on the way out to ratting!

11 comments:

Kobeathris said...

I know you don't care so much about the relative merit of PVP skills or ability, but, if some of your readers do, Kil2's youtube videos, which I will link below, actually do show the "how", as well as giving very clear explanations of what is going on. His longer solo videos (his Talos roam, for example), also show how he goes about looking for fights.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jampyzero

Anonymous said...

So I see you've been faking all your miner suicide ganks. 52B/month of self kills. Now that kind of trolling takes effort.

Gevlon said...

Why would anyone fake that? It's easier to do it legitimately, finding an AFK miner is easier than fitting an alt.

Alrenous said...

Socials are morons in certain important ways. Understandable, but important.

"The point of my blog isn't "look at me, I'm awesome" but "look at economics, it's awesome" and "look at a-social thinking, it's awesome"."

The social cannot make this distinction. They subconsciously think it's a sly trick - you're either saying, "I'm awesome because I can recognize these things" or "I do these things, and therefore I'm awesome." They think this because 99 times out of 100, someone pretending to be a-social is in fact a social doing this exact sly trick. Moreover, the point is, "I'm awesome, you should obey me without question."

Similarly, socials obey without question because they wouldn't be able to understand the answers anyway, which means 99 times out of 100, questions are a sly way of insinuating the questioned is not awesome.

Nevertheless, it means the social keeps company with the moron in that 1 out of 100 situation, like here.

This theory predicts that many readers of this will have a gut reaction of suspicion, then cast around for reasons to substantiate it, and latch onto the first reason they find without looking further.

This will produce a lot of push-back, but it will be incoherent, not unified and not a pattern, unless they explicitly coordinate somehow.

Anonymous said...

Personally, the whole "elite" thing is a bunch of BS for both traders and pvp'ers. It's all relevant to every individual person, what they view as elite.

You also post as though you know entirely about what's going on, as if you know Eve pvp. But truth is that you've shown time and again in your recent posts that you don't have a clue. You know how to gank. Congrads, but like you even say yourself on nearly everything, that knowledge has been around on the internet for years now. You also know how to shoot yourself. Umm....I won't even bother making you feel like that was actually a relevant argument. You know how to trade. You've proven you have competence in that simply from your earlier blog posts, before you turned your analytical interests in killboard statistics.

Fact is, if you actually took the time to do some REAL pvp, against other players (no ganking or shooting your own alts...) it won't take you long at all to see how empty and worthless all your facts and figures are. Right now, you're like the war analyst who sits around in his office all day, pouring over data and printouts, attempting to write a technical book on tactical maneuvers and operations... when you've got absolutely no experience in the field. Or like me telling my girlfriend, who is an autopsy tech, that what she does isn't difficult or takes no skills. You simply slice and dice the bodies right?! Believe me, say something like that to her and I'd fear her response to such a remark far above any Eve PVPer!

But I won't totally argue with everything you say. For instance, would I agree that most YouTube videos and such are mostly boasting? A resounding "Hell Yes!" BUT you see pvp videos from nearly every MMO out there, WoW included, for the same reason. The "I'm so awesome" videos. They are what they are. However, stop casting stones when your entire blog is filled with boasting of your own explorations and accomplishments in the world that is Eve. You’re just do it in a different media format.

What I can tell you though is that being a good pvp pilot in Eve does take skill. No amount of videos you watch, or material you read, will truly make you good at pvp in Eve. It takes time and practice. Knowledge does exist. But there are two types of knowledge. Knowledge gained through reading and knowledge gained through doing. And through them, you will gain skill. Skill being defined as:

a : the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance
b : dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks
c: a learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability

So having knowledge only gets you so far. Learning to utilize that knowledge will give you the skills that you claim to be non-existant. Another example is the boy locked in a windowless room for all of his early years. He's taught about the grass and trees and sky and may think he knows what people are talking about and then tells them it's all BS. That it's all made up. One giant conspiracy or something. Until the kid actually gets up and breaks out of that room, he really has no idea and is a fallacy for him to even be arguing it, just as until you actually experience some real pvp, it's fallacy for you to be arguing this point.

Unless of course you really are just one big troll..

Druur Monakh said...

@Gevlon "I believe anyone can earn equal ISK as me."

And it's still true only on paper.

In practice, just knowing the mechanics doesn't make you a master of them - instead, you need to practice them until they become second nature, and you don't even have to think about when to use what.

And in order to make it through the inevitable failures during that learning period, you need a motivator, which (especially in games) is "interest".

If you're not interested in becoming an expert fencer, no amount of coaching and practice will change that. You can become decent, maybe even good, but not expert. Same with market trading.

And why should it be any other way? Time spent is a cost factor all by itself - there is not enough time to be expert at everything, so it's best spent on activities you actually want to be an expert in.

People are different from each other, have differing interests, and thus won't all do equally well in any particular field - and there is nothing 'elite' about acknowledging that fact.

Sugar Kyle said...

If no one would fake that why would they fake any PvP kill?

This entire argument just runs around in circles.

Anonymous said...

"Why would anyone fake that? It's easier to do it legitimately, finding an AFK miner is easier than fitting an alt."

Why would anyone fake anything? If you weren't terrible at speed fitting alts you'd know faking mass miner kills is much easier than actually going about doing the real thing.

Gevlon said...

@Sugar: because they want to look "elite". You wouldn't fake because you can't care less what others think about your gameplay. Faking kills is boring (you move an alt to position, kill stationary alt), there is no intrinsic motivation for it. They do it to get respect and fame. They want to get into "prestigeous" corps and want to watch their youtube visitor count grow.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon, I;m astonished by your tin foil hattery. No prestigious corp will take a hi sec ganker, cause miner ganks just show how much one fails at pvp that they can only shoot ships without guns. No one will call you even a pvp'er - ganking miners is not pvp, it's even worse than pve (npcs at least shoot back).

swp said...

In many games knowledge is a celebrated path to success. People gain respect sharing information. This does not hurt their competitive position since their peers (on ladder, in tournaments) have the same info and those that benefit are not direct opponents.

In the open world that is Eve, victory is best ensured by picking on the weak, and sharing information instantly weaken's one's own position.

In addition, much of victory in Eve is sheer gruntwork: adding watch list of everyone you are fighting, studying KB history, having bookmarks, and so and so on. Unlike knowledge, it is unimpressive.

Finally, there is many victories that is due to failure of opponents. However that is both hard to know about and completely unimpressive.

So it is better to attribute success to mystical properties.