The official end of the sandbox

The whole post-citadel economy is designed around New Jita. The transaction tax is increased exactly to sink out as much ISK from the economy as the old tax plus old broker fee. If people would keep trading in NPC stations, the new, 1750% increased broker fee (from 0.2% to 3.5% with perfect skills and standings) would sink out all the ISK from the economy in months. People must switch to New Jita and must do it fast.

There is one and only one thing that could prevent New Jita from being created. If people wouldn't use it in fear of destruction or because many contestant citadels are built and despite the owners of the "real one" pop them, they live long enough to create confusion. Remember, New Jita prints nothing on its own, it needs the highsec masses to move there and trade and they are both uninformed and suspecting scam, gank and tearfarming everywhere.

-How could it be made clear which is the "real" New Jita? - CCP wondered:
Yes, they designed a faction Keepstar just to make sure no one misses the right one. With this, the sandbox officially ends. There is one and only one meaningful gameplay left, a "king of the hill" style game fighting for the one and only Palatine. Everything else is just fluff, like pet battles in WoW. You are having this citadel, or you are a scrub. Being a "nullsec Sov-holder" without Palatine cartel membership will be just as "cool" as being a "highsec mining corp" now. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against those who just ignore it and live in Null or WH or wherever they want, but social people don't work that way, otherwise they wouldn't mock highsec miners who are playing a completely valid part of the game. Social people want the "cool stuff". Currently CCP didn't decide what is considered "cool", players did. With Palatine, it will be obvious.

Though giving up the signature quality of EVE is a dangerous choice, the sandbox didn't really function well as a video game, since there were peace times for years and players secretly making deals instead of wars. This is great for scientific simulation, not so great for an entertainment product. Shifting to a clear-goal PvP game could actually end well. However in such games, the end goal is game score or trophy or bragging right for a reason. It rewards the current winners, but allows other players to try to take it. The New Jita cartel will be totally unbeatable from the outside, since New Jita literally sucks out the ISK from EVE and hands it to the owners. I mean the total ratting income (the main faucet) will be equal to the income of this citadel. There will be no possible way for anyone to create a war chest needed to challenge the owning cartel.

The huge price tag (about 200T or 2000 titans) is also a great tool to cement the cartel and make sure that it won't implode from the inside. No alliance has such money in its coffers. To get the Palatine up in timely fashion, not just the cartel alliances, but their corps and individual members must chip in by selling personal titans, firesaling assets or running incursions as corp ops. Whales must open their wallets once again. After giving in most of your corp assets and asking your members to sell personal assets, not even the most egomaniac corp leader will walk away because of an insult or perceived demotion. Or if he does, he does so without his corp as line members will immediately jump ship to another cartel corp to preserve their investments. Similarly, if Joe anybody sold his hard-earned Nyx for that Palatine share, he will sure as hell logs in when the ping goes out for a defense fleet, guaranteeing that the cartel can field an absolutely no-fun blob that not only defends the citadel, but also scares off anyone who would attack it to get fights. Finally, it prevents any top leader from going Winet and solving disagreements with right-click, kick. He knows that if he kicks someone from not only a royal monthly income but from most of his personal assets, he makes an enemy that never forgives and spares no amount of effort to get revenge, no matter how unfun it is. So after they chipped in, the cartel members are totally committed to stick together and defend New Jita forever.

Since it's no-brainer who will be the most powerful when the expansion hits (PL), it's clear that CCP willingly declares PL the king of the hill, the never-to-be-defeated rulers of EVE. I believe Goons were selected originally, but the players united to get rid of them. Since PL became eligible for the Whaletopia title by creating PH, CCP can accept this last choice of players.

By creating the Palatine, CCP thrown any appearance of sandbox to the wind to be able to send a clear message to the whales out there: come play EVE, here you can pwn thousands of players, permanently destroying hundred-thousand dollar worth of assets without any risk of defeat and show off a $3M "housing" to your imaginary friends.

This was my last post about New Jita or the EVE economy. When I saw the Palatine I've lost any hope left that EVE can remain the game we loved. From now I'll focus on defeating Goons before the sandbox ends and summarize the knowledge we could learn from it. Playing EVE was a great adventure and I was much more engaged than I was with WoW or WoT. I'm not burned out, I didn't plan to leave EVE, I had two projects planned after GRR is complete.

Would I be oblivious of the end of the sandbox, April could be an awesome ending of GRR, without the current bitter taste. After all, Goons are going down exactly the way I've planned and predicted years ago, in posts mocked and linked everywhere for comedy. The fact that it's IWI and not me providing most of the money is irrelevant. My blog was always about the idea of meritocracy and control via money instead of "friendship" and my actions were mere examples. It was never "look at me as I can pwn socials" it was "look at the money as it pwns socials".

So for the next month I try to act like the Citadel expansion wouldn't exist and focus on the moments. The moments that bring dead Goonies, lost Goon systems and above all: the death of the idea that social ties and "leadership" can hold together an empire against market forces and meritocracy. I love how Goons picture this war as "mercenary war", playing exactly to my narrative. I have 30 days and 900B to spend. Join me at this last ride, let's make April worth remembering. After that I'll be gone and remember EVE as it was, a vibrant, ruthless, hard-to-understand but finally solved socio-economical simulation and not as the repulsive pay-to-win videogame it becomes with Citadels.


Fresh news from PB: And another 7 timers won (IHUBs and freeports)