Player Features and Ideas Discussion

1) The problem

Hi

I am a plex paying player fro over 6 years now, with 4 accounts (2 inactive atm).
I love this game for 2 awesome reasons, and that is the way the pvp rules are made. I love pvp and no other game offers the freedom that eve does, and the one huge world/server thing (i hate games with pvp servers/, pve servers,and so on).

But life as a pvper is not always kill people with a blob, and the way i like to pvp allot of times gets me killed (i like to try and go against the ods) so as everyone knows pvp in eve = loosing ships = way of income to make that isk = allot of time spent not pvping but playing what it is for me the "suck version" of eve.

Now before the miners and ratters start jumping on my head I have to say that the way we play the game is a choice and if you guys like to do all that pve/industry stuff its fine i'm not judging, i started as a miner after all.

So looking at today's markets, for ship prices and plex you can see how I have a issue. At this moment I have to spend like a good week making just the isk for 2/4 plexes wich is very hard for someone that doesn't enjoy doing all that pve stuff. After that if i'm not getting the emo rage feel for ratting or w/e the f*** i do for plex isk, i have to start do it again so i can have the isk to replace the lost ships.

Adding to the problem is CCP who constantly tries to find more reasons to sell plexes other that paying the monthly subscriptions. (aur store, tournament signup taxes, selling rl items for aur)

All that sums up for someone like me to one thing: more time to make isk = less time to have fun in eve.

Anyway that is the problem from my point of view. Here is the solution:

2) The solution

The solution I came up with is simple:

- Invent a new coin that is not plex related. That new currency will be used for any reason ccp might like (tournamen fees, rl item store, etc...) but will not be used to pay for the subscriptions, and remove the 30 day plex need for those.

Keep the plexes just for the subscriptions.

The new currency will also, just like plex, be trade able on eve markets so that people with allot of isk can buy those and signup for tourneys or w/e.

NOTE: At the time of this message plex prices are down to 570mil from what it was a couple days ago 720.

Question for CCP: In the world of economics, what is better: sell 100 items at the price of 10 dollars or sell 1000 items at the price of 1 dollar?

I hope you realize that selling more cheaper is the way to go and if you don't get that let me just say this: The cheaper plexes are the easier it is for plex paying players to get into and enjoy the game and as in my case instead of having 4 active accounts I only have 2 wich translating into "money for ccp" means 40 bucks a month income instead of 80.

I hope someone at CCP reads this and finds it useful.

Thanks for reading it and sorry if I offended anyone I was not intentional.

You could always just pay for the game or play on one account and spend all your ISK on having fun. Just an idea.

How do you think this idea of yours will fix your problem? The reason people buy these products from CCP is to make as much ISK as possible for themselves. If the better product is your new token, they won't be beying PLEXs to sell to you, which will increase the price of PLEX. If the PLEX is the better product, no one is buying your new token, which will retain the current situation. Either way the PLEX price isn't going to significantly come down, since the price is determined by the players themselves.




The obvious reason why CCP isn't selling it to you directly for ISK is, that it wouldn't earn them as much RL money. In your system most of the demand is met by players buying the products with ISK sales and little RL money is used. With the current system the demand is satisfied entirely from sales, that earn RL money for CCP. You can still buy the products from the market using ISK and most do, but someone paid RL money to CCP to put that product there for you to buy.

I don't see why you're involving tinfoil hats in to this though. They're a company looking to increase their revenue and remove unused PLEX from peoples cargobays because they're a liability for CCP, so they'll try to make as many uses for PLEX as possible. It's not a hidden agenda. It's what every company would try to do.



It's 15$ a month at maximum. If you can't afford that, maybe you should be working instead of playing videogames or accept, that you're going to have to spend some time to earn that extra ISK. Also a wife who nags about you spending 15$ or who can't comprehend the concept of paying for continued service isn't a problem with the game.

Maybe have less accounts?

I pay via plex, I used to have 3 accounts now im down to 2 due to rl reason of not being able to be on enough to make enough isk.

Theres nothing wrong with plex prices, they've been driven up sure do to a number of reasons, but they wont go up higher then people are willing to pay for them. And as long as their is a demand for plex from players going in on a tournament or wanting to pay their account, they really have no reason to lower prices drastically until people start buying less. It's a pain in the ass that im paying close to twice as much as back in the day, but the market has spoken.

And im sure the higher plex prices are the more people that are going to want to buy time codes to trade to get a better bang for their buck

There's never going to be anything "wrong" with PLEX prices. They are determined by free market forces, and thus pretty much AUTOMATICALLY make CCP the maximum amount of money possible.

PLEX could cost 2 billion isk each, and it wouldn't matter. That would still be close to the optimal price given those circumstances.

History shows us that CCP could make even more money if they could devise some way to do micro payments for things, but it would be very tricky to implement such a thing, given Eve's current setup and the potential for alt abuse. And it would certainly NOT make it any cheaper to play the game for free in the process.

I can totally understand most comments here. But what ccp needs to understand is that current plex prices = 2 out of 4 accounts active. Plex reaches 700mill again = me close 3rd account possibly 4th.

As for paying with real money.... not everyone has a 1500$ minimum wage. I live in a fking 3rd world country where 20 bucks a month is 10% of what i make. So excuse me for working just as much as a american or Canadian or w/e... maybe more actually, and not been paid the same.

Bottom line: I realize that they try to keep the apprentice that the prices are driven by market demand and all that economical talk... but if that's true than how the hell plex prices go up with every tournament, and why do they sell rl **** for plex.

Yes prices are dictated by the market but they should stop providing reasons for people to buy plexes other than game time.

Need I remind you that 4-5 years ago or so you used to pay 250mill for a 90day game time code?

CCP is milking this **** as much as possible and they're fking up the game doing it.

I don't know much about the tournaments, I'll admit, but does anyone really think they account for even a fraction of the weekly PLEX trade in Jita? Over two thousand are sold there every day according to the market history thingy.

How many of those go to the tournaments, to aurum, transfers or whatever? I bet it's less than 10%.

to encourage more people to move to a longer subscription time, i think im 6 months atm, they could offer a free plex with every 12 month subscription, and that ought to pump up the numbers of plex available,

but it might lower there over all plex income.

It's also a really bad idea to spend most of that income on developing 2 crappy games that no one in the world actually give a frak about instead of spending it on developing WIS, the only platform that could support a thriving micro transaction market, and quite possibly a F2P model that could provide them a better income and us more iskies to have fun, and could also finally put eve on the mainstream mmo radar.But no,instead they create plex sinks to insure them more income to develop their vampire dust for sony crap.

But w/e let's just shut up and pay our plex.

No, what YOU don't understand is that CCP has nothing directly to do with plex prices. Players and how much they are willing to pay are what determines plex prices. If the price is at 700 million, thats because there are enough players WILLING to pay 700 million to keep it there. Some people like you may close some accounts, but there are more than enough to replace you who are willing to pay that much. Otherwise the price wouldn't be there. Simple as that.

Also, you seem to believe that most players have multiple accounts, which they almost certainly do not.



And the only way that CCP DOES minorly affect the rates is by things like aurum. Which are not "milking" anything. They are obviously nice perks that people actually enjoy. Otherwise they wouldn't be in demand...

Out of what happens with plex prices right now only people that are happy are plex sellers.

Yes i can see how me closing the remaining 2 accounts can make ccp not give a rats fk about it and i got no problem there.

But how many people that play the game in my situation would have 1 or 2 or 3 more active accounts if plex prices will be back down to lets say 1-200mill a pop??

Wouldn't that make ccp more money as they would sell more a month?

All this **** started to happen when the took out the 60 and 90 day gtc's offers. I remember I used to rat for like 6h and i had my first 2 accounts payed for 3 months each. That was it, everything else for 3 months was pure gaming pleasure.

I know that they wont go back to that but still you cant tell me that the plex market is driven by players since ccp is dictating the terms under which the supply and demand rules apply.

Also if you think that tournaments don't affect the game allot think of it like this:

With every tournament plexes got a little higher and after they dint came back to what it was.

I simply don't understand why ccp can't see this: easier it is for people to pay with plex = more accounts active = more money to be made.

If 1 plex seller makes 800mill with a plex sold and hes happy, that's fine he payd 20 bucks for 800mil from ccp but who ever buys that plex. who ever needs it to stay in game makes a real huge effort to do so.

I personally brought to the game 3 people back in the old days (the days of the 250-350mil 90day gtc) and back then it took them about a month to get caldari raven skills + side skills to earn enough running lvl4's to keep their accounts up on their own.

Couple months later all of them had at least a second account and we all had fun enjoying the game.

Today out of those 3 (a total of like 10 accounts in the end) only one occasionally gets in game with hes main character . When i talked to them about why not log in anymore they told me they no longer finding it fun to grind for isk just to stay in game.

Today 2 new guys ... noobs I meat on my country chat chan are under my training program... first thing hey ask me is: "how long do we need to train in order to earn enough to pay for our own accounts with isk?"
I told them that if done right about a month but instead of lvl4 runing I redirected them for ratting in 0.0 since that's where i live now and focused the skill training on that.

Bottom line as this will probably my last message on this matter is this:

I have 4 accounts 2 are inactive because i cant get myself to do all the stuff i need to do to get the extra 1.1k mil a month for them.

I really don't see a issue with ccp at least trying to invent a new coin or use the aur thing but without the plex relation. The new coin been just for commodity thingys or w/e and tourney participation would be sold on eve site and trade able on eve markets for isk for w/e wants to use the isk for those. Leaving plex just for the subscriptions.

That's one solution other been returning to the old buy more get a lil extra ways as in a small reduction in price for those that buy 3 or 6 months of game time, making more plexes available in eve.

At least for a year I propose ccp tries that and check 2 things: the number of new subscriptions and the number of old accounts reactivated.

If i am wrong they can just get back to this mess and stay like this.

Hope someone at ccp actually reads this forums and he actually matters over there and hes not just the janitor or w/e.