I have given up on playing the market. It was fun for a few weeks, but I have determined it is not for me. There is far too much micromanaging for my taste. I don’t have a desire to log in numerous times over the course of the day to update orders. I am not going to let the month of time left on my account go to waste, seeing as I payed for it after all, so I am off to find other business ventures in New Eden. Or maybe I’ll just mine some space rocks in the shiny new mining frigate.

Either way, perhaps I will find something that will provide the ISK to pay for Eve.

After going home for the holidays and some personal life issues, earning the required amount of ISK to buy a PLEX in one month was an utter bust. I didn’t even come close and I lost a lot of motivation to keep playing Eve Online. I am not going to give up that easily however. I am moving my trading operation to Jita and I may start a hauling alt as well since my trading skills are now solid.

I have since cancelled the last few of my buy orders in Rens and will try to sell off my remaining stock. I know it moves faster in Jita but I think it may be better for what I am trying to accomplish. However, if I can’t support my Eve Online playing as a trader I may have to hang it up again. Seeing as I cannot afford to pay for more than one MMO I have given myself until March to produce results.

So far it has been going well despite that I have not been playing much, between the holidays, work and other entertainment. I have made keeping up with my slice of the market my top priority in Eve.

I invested money into a few more products however I also lost one item due to the profit margin collapsing. Someone raised the price of their buy orders in a dramatic fashion, a 180% increase.

I think the idea behind raising buy orders that high would be to utilize the overpriced orders to start building a large stockpile before buying out all the current sell orders. Once the market has been bought out begin posting sell orders at much higher price, increasing profit. This would also corner the market until more traders post sell orders. I would call it short term cornering.

This is more napkin analysis than anything definitive and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Week 1 End: 71 million ISK

This time around in Eve Online I created a new character. Reviving a past character would gain me a month of skills but that is not much in the long run. I wanted to be station trading in Rens as quick as possible so I chose Minmatar due to the starting system being only a handful of jumps away.

In order to begin trading I needed some starting capital and the meager amount of ISK you start off with would not cut it. I opted to follow the tutorial profession arcs (which I had done before) to collect the ISK and material rewards as well as the skillbooks they grant. I did not complete all of them, but started off with the Industrial arc which in my previous stints was my go to profession in Eve. I followed industry up with the Business arc and finished off the Military arc for my Rifter.

I finished the tutorials with 1.5 million ISK; a minuscule amount but enough to start the ball rolling.

Day 1: Quick & Dirty Research

Without a lot ISK to bankroll my trading I needed items with a quick turnaround. Ideal products would give me a great profit (calculated as a percentage of the cost) along with steady turnover. I found what I was looking for after looking over the market for twenty or so minutes. I also invested in one “big ticket” item that had similar profits but I would be unable to buy in similar amounts to the smaller “bulk” items. Big ticket sales would allow me to invest more in the bulk items quicker.

• Bulk Item 1: generating 100% profit
• Bulk Item 2: generating 250% profit
• Big Ticket: generating 200% profit

Given that I was watching football all day I was able to check and update my orders hourly.

Day 1 End: 3.6 million ISK (140% profit)

Day 2: 0.01 ISK Warring

• Bulk Item 1: both buy orders and sell orders moving consistently
• Bulk Item 2: fierce competition among buyers leads to stock shortages
• Big Ticket: lights out success, aggressive pricing with sell orders generates turnover

Since I work a fulltime job I am unable to compete with others buying Bulk Item 2, the 0.01 ISK pricing wars with buy orders gets updated with greater frequency than I can hold steady against.

Day 2 End: 9.0 million ISK (150% profit)

Day 3: Building Supply

• Bulk Item 1: both buy and sell orders still moving well
• Bulk Item 2: competition still stifling sales
• Big Ticket: creating a large reserve of stock to sell before moving on to bigger items.

The 0.01 ISK game among buy orders is still killing any profit to be gained from Bulk Item 2 however Bulk Item 1 continues to move consistently. I have created a decent stockpile of my Big Ticket item that I plan on selling in bulk to boost capital to enable moving into more items to trade.

Day 3 End: 15.3 million ISK (70% profit)

Up next: when markets crash and an update on skill training. Also newbie League of Legends.

My initial goal this time around in Eve Online is to not pay the subscription fee with money out of my own pocket. That means buying Pilot License Extensions (PLEX) with the in game currency, ISK. A single PLEX, as of this posting, goes for somewhere in the ballpark of 600 million ISK. I came to the conclusion the most feasible way to wrangle up that kind of cash in a month is to play the market.

I have no prior experience trading in Eve Online. During my past stints I never invested in trade skills, nor did I play the market. I was content to buy what was needed and to sell the excess.

Next I will showcase my day-to-day progress and lessons learned tackling station trading in Rens.

I broke down and began playing Eve Online again. Eve has been my most enjoyable game for a few years now however I tend to not play it much. I have played Eve off and on for three years, more off than on. I grow bored while playing, despite how much I enjoy the game and the community supporting it. Perhaps this time around I can commit to playing for more than a month.

More to come soon.