Eve Online

I got back into Eve Online this past weekend (boredom from lack of spouse and child). I think it has to be the most incredibly diverse / deep game I've ever played. The economics of the game are impressive and, as an economist, I'm really intrigued by the depth and detail of the system. The developers have a philosophy of allowing the players to shape the world and they've done a very, very good job of that.

The reason I started playing again is that they are prepping their next big expansion (all of which are free). This new expansion is going to be an economics junkies dream. The game is set in space and, as such, has planets. But they're essentially landmarks now. They don't do anything and they can't really be interacted with in any way. You can even fly through them without repercussions. The new expansion, curiously titled "Tyrannis", opens up the planets to economic exploitation.

Warning: Speculation
From the few official posts, you can glean a pretty good bit of information. It looks like it'll be Sim City in space to some degree. Or perhaps Railroad tycoon is a better model. The system will include transportation logistics (meaning, you have to connect your production facilities in a logical pattern) as well as natural resource nodes. Given that this expansion contains no "war" elements it will be interesting to see how they address "I got here first and now I have a gold mine" results. Either way, there are multiple types of planets with, presumably, multiple types of harvestable goods. They've indicated that some things would be able to be produced on planet and some things would require transportation. It appears that players will be limited in what they can do (perhaps through space, perhaps through diminishing returns for diversification) and that trade agreements between players on planet would be likely. There will be a "pollution" mechanic to encourage people to spread out. My thought is this will just be diminished global production for a planet that's over-harvested.

The goal appears to be to phase out NPC goods from the economy. This ranges from implants to construction blocks and everything in between. It's not clear if there's a goal to eventually phase out things like Blueprints and Faction ammo. My gut is that those will stay for the foreseeable future.

The broad objective is to move the game away from NPCs and towards players. I'll be really intrigued to see the implementation and I'll be rushing in the land-grab to get whatever I can. The players will likely be limited to 1 planet at the start with a developer statement indicating that a new skill would likely allow you to operate more at some point (6 presumably given the way the skill system works).