License, tax, rent

Yesterday I mentioned an idea that deserves a much deeper analysis, namely that alliances should sell PvE licenses to players instead of taxing them. Let's assume 300M license fee, 60M/hour income, 20% tax:
As you can see, any serious PvE player is better off with a license than a tax. He is more likely to join a licensing alliance than a taxing. Tax is only preferred by casual PvE players, typically PvP-ers ratting on the side. The alliance needs nothing but separating its space between taxed and licensed one and punishing those who were found in licensed land without license.

Why is it good for the alliance?

• Because it draws the more serious PvE players to the alliance, the ones who pay more
• The gym-trick: most income of gyms come from people who decide to lose weight/live healthy and pay the entrance fee for a month but don't come at all or just once. Many players who would not do much PvE, therefore pay no tax would buy the license saying "I'll grind hard this month to finally get my carrier". The fact if he actually does or not is irrelevant for the alliance, as he already paid.
• Easy recruiting: if you recruit someone, he can be a spy, awoxer or simply an annoying idiot. If you recruit him into the licensing corp and have to kick him tomorrow, he still paid his license fee
• Easy taxing of mining: ratting can be taxed, mining not. You must set extra rules to administer the amount of minerals and collect fees. The typical way is demanding refining on the station which disallow the easy transportation in Rorqual compressed form. With license there is no such problem. Any member will gladly blow up unlicensed miners for free.

Now let's see how such licensing would differ from system renting: The renter is a corporation, the license-buyer is a pilot. When you deal with corporations, you have to take the good with the bad as you lack the administrative power to filter every member. Also most corp leaders wouldn't be happy if you'd tell them who to take. With the licenses you cut the corp leaders out of the loop, you contract directly with the pilot. If he fails to deliver or makes trouble you kick him and only him. If a corporation makes trouble, you have to kick it whole, including the non-offending players. A corporation has its own culture, the players are mostly loyal to the corp. If the leader decides that they leave, they do. A player, licensed alone has no other culture to join so even if he arrived solely for ratting income he'll find friends in the alliance, therefore will more likely fight for them when things get rough. Finally, most PvE players are in highsec and alone (in a crop with 2 alts, family members). If you recruit renter corps, they can't join. By offering personal licenses, you can reach the individual player and can get him to join.

While other administrative means are possible, let me suggest a simple and effective way to handle licensing. The alliance creates a new corp, lead by one of the trusted directors. His job is to handle the PvE players. Both existing alliance members and foreigners can apply. The existing members get in instantly, the newcomers are scanned for obvious spies/troublemakers and may required security deposit. Of course it needs the alliance to be trustworthy, no sane man would pay security deposit to GSF for example. If the alliance used to be scamming, then even monthly fees can be problematic and weekly payments are needed until the system proves itself to be not a scam.

Some trusted alliance PvE players are promoted to officers of the corp who monitor chat against unwanted behavior. Remember that if you want to lure PvE players to nullsec, you must provide answers to their noobish questions and ASCII penises that several people consider answers on chat don't suffice. These "moderators" are also needed to hint alliance propaganda and root out whining, allowing the alliance to culturally assimilate the newcomers, as them joining in fleets would be a good bonus on top of the fees they pay. Of course the promoted officers should receive some form of salary for their work, like discount in the license fee. They should also have enough PvP knowledge to be able to both advise the PvE newcomers in PvP and lead them against minor enemy troublemakers.

The moron of the day is undoubtably him. He transported 7B worth of implants in a Rifter that had no fittings at all. No nanofibers, no tank, no nothing.


PS: quick news, a CCP Diagoras tweet: Top nullsec stations for market trans on Apr 22nd: 6VDT (5,741), VFK (4,055), C3N (1,759), L-C3 (1,711), E-BY (1,691).

Thursday morning report: 143.6B (3.5 spent on main accounts, 2.4 spent on Logi/Carrier, 2.2 on Ragnarok, 1.6 on Rorqual, 1.4 on Nyx, 1.8 on Avatar, 2.6 received as gift)