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Granualr PLEX [1 day PLEX tokens]

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Author
Fer'isam K'ahn
SAS Veterinarians
#21 - 2014-07-18 12:32:52 UTC
What would keep me from hacking a plex in 30 pieces, log 30 cat accounts in, suicide gank a bit, collect like 10-20 bil loot, log them off and run my main ... and by the missuse of this one plex I might pusj one or two players to rage quit. Yeah, not exploitable.

One exploit is enough to refute this, let it go.

Unless an account re-activation costs a plex or months sub in itself, then you can have your 1 day tokens Shocked

Antillie Sa'Kan
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#22 - 2014-07-18 12:42:14 UTC
There is already a smaller unit of PLEX. Its called ISK. Get enough ISK and you can exchange it for a PLEX. Simple.
Carniflex
StarHunt
Mordus Angels
#23 - 2014-07-18 12:46:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Carniflex
Fer'isam K'ahn wrote:
What would keep me from hacking a plex in 30 pieces, log 30 cat accounts in, suicide gank a bit, collect like 10-20 bil loot, log them off and run my main ... and by the missuse of this one plex I might pusj one or two players to rage quit. Yeah, not exploitable.

One exploit is enough to refute this, let it go.

Unless an account re-activation costs a plex or months sub in itself, then you can have your 1 day tokens Shocked



Only limits in that scenario would be
(1) Your ability to multitask or technical limits set by third party software you use for achieving synchronization between your gank catalysts (i.e., ISBoxer).
(2) Your ability to set up 30 paid accounts (making a trial to full account would still need full PLEX under the present proposal). Do note that running more than one trial account simultaneously is classed as exploit.

That out of the way nothing other than the above-mentioned considerations prevent you from doing it currently either. Well other than you would need to subscribe in 30 day chunks which might be significant investment if you for some reason have let the accounts expire. Which you would not do ofc if you would be after isk efficency.

If we are talking about suicide gank destroyers what you would be doing currently is rolling 30 21d trials, train them up gank catalysts - sub them with PLEX on the last day. Gank for a month and let them expire in the end, rolling new gankes instead of resubbing the same accounts again (saving some ISK by not having to deal with negative sec status).

Edit: Note about ISBoxer. While CCP is not officially classing it as exploit they do reimbuse players who petition ISBoxer losses. For example, the common ISBoxer bomber squads you can encounter on regular basis in null security space.

Here, sanity... niiiice sanity, come to daddy... okay, that's a good sanity... THWONK! GOT the bastard.

epicurus ataraxia
Illusion of Solitude.
Illusion of Solitude
#24 - 2014-07-18 18:06:34 UTC
Carniflex wrote:
Fer'isam K'ahn wrote:
What would keep me from hacking a plex in 30 pieces, log 30 cat accounts in, suicide gank a bit, collect like 10-20 bil loot, log them off and run my main ... and by the missuse of this one plex I might pusj one or two players to rage quit. Yeah, not exploitable.

One exploit is enough to refute this, let it go.

Unless an account re-activation costs a plex or months sub in itself, then you can have your 1 day tokens Shocked



Only limits in that scenario would be
(1) Your ability to multitask or technical limits set by third party software you use for achieving synchronization between your gank catalysts (i.e., ISBoxer).
(2) Your ability to set up 30 paid accounts (making a trial to full account would still need full PLEX under the present proposal). Do note that running more than one trial account simultaneously is classed as exploit.

That out of the way nothing other than the above-mentioned considerations prevent you from doing it currently either. Well other than you would need to subscribe in 30 day chunks which might be significant investment if you for some reason have let the accounts expire. Which you would not do ofc if you would be after isk efficency.

If we are talking about suicide gank destroyers what you would be doing currently is rolling 30 21d trials, train them up gank catalysts - sub them with PLEX on the last day. Gank for a month and let them expire in the end, rolling new gankes instead of resubbing the same accounts again (saving some ISK by not having to deal with negative sec status).

Edit: Note about ISBoxer. While CCP is not officially classing it as exploit they do reimbuse players who petition ISBoxer losses. For example, the common ISBoxer bomber squads you can encounter on regular basis in null security space.

I believe it has been confirmed that rolling alts to avoid security sec issues also counts as an exploit and may result in a ban for all accounts that they can trace linked to the offending account, (or may not) but naturally the decision to or not rests entirely with CCP and I would not wish to discuss that issue (being very careful not to annoy ISD while pointing out downside) . You may wish to clarify that point, So keeping alts running day by day until caught would probably not be a good idea if that was your intention, which I hope it was not.

There is one EvE. Many people. Many lifestyles. WE are EvE

Michael Ignis Archangel
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#25 - 2014-07-18 18:20:14 UTC
KIller Wabbit wrote:

Since PLEX is a liability to CCP's revenue recognition this would certainly improve the balance sheet.


As a RL accountant, I would ask you to seek a better understanding of deferred revenue and its impact on cash flows and earnings before throwing around terms from the first week of Accounting 101.

I also don't like this idea, and the notion of handing them out as part of the gameplay breaks a key relationship in the Eve economy - that outside extraordinary events, all existing PLEX were created from RL currency.
Carniflex
StarHunt
Mordus Angels
#26 - 2014-07-18 20:10:55 UTC
epicurus ataraxia wrote:

I believe it has been confirmed that rolling alts to avoid security sec issues also counts as an exploit and may result in a ban for all accounts that they can trace linked to the offending account, (or may not) but naturally the decision to or not rests entirely with CCP and I would not wish to discuss that issue (being very careful not to annoy ISD while pointing out downside) . You may wish to clarify that point, So keeping alts running day by day until caught would probably not be a good idea if that was your intention, which I hope it was not.

As I'm personally not involved in suicide ganking business then I am unaware of the finer nuances of the activity. It might very well be the case. Only advice I can give which is reliable in this regard is that if in doubt petition and ask if's it is ok what you have planned.

All I was pointing out was that the described "problems" already exist regardless if the PLEX can be chopped up into the smaller chunks or not in regards of alts and suicide ganking.

Michael Ignis Archangel wrote:

I also don't like this idea, and the notion of handing them out as part of the gameplay breaks a key relationship in the Eve economy - that outside extraordinary events, all existing PLEX were created from RL currency.


I think you must have misunderstood something. No where in that proposal would the PLEX be handed out as part of a gameplay. The proposal was specifically taking the 30 day PLEX you have (the one you can buy for real money off CCP or retailer) and chopping it into smaller chunks. Every token would still have a real life monetary value hooked up to it still just like the current 30d PLEX does.

Here, sanity... niiiice sanity, come to daddy... okay, that's a good sanity... THWONK! GOT the bastard.

Gully Alex Foyle
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#27 - 2014-07-18 20:17:20 UTC
Michael Ignis Archangel wrote:
KIller Wabbit wrote:

Since PLEX is a liability to CCP's revenue recognition this would certainly improve the balance sheet.


As a RL accountant, I would ask you to seek a better understanding of deferred revenue and its impact on cash flows and earnings before throwing around terms from the first week of Accounting 101.

I also don't like this idea, and the notion of handing them out as part of the gameplay breaks a key relationship in the Eve economy - that outside extraordinary events, all existing PLEX were created from RL currency.
This is interesting.

Does ccp really count plex as deferred revenue?

If yes, do you think they could also choose to not do so, since plex is also an in-game asset that doesn't necessarily need to be consumed to provide a service?

Make space glamorous! Is EVE dying or not? Ask the EVE-O Death-o-meter!

Korvus Falek
Depraved Corruption
Lux Inter Astra
#28 - 2014-07-18 21:05:07 UTC
I would do this specifically to re-align all my accounts re-sub dates, or stagger them out so not so much RL cash or PLEX is needed all at one time.

Currently, if you want to do either option, you are forced to cancel the account/let it run dry and then re-sub it on the specific days you want spaced out; effectively losing out on a small bit of training for the alt accounts.
Petrified
Old and Petrified Syndication
#29 - 2014-07-18 23:03:35 UTC
There is a certain appeal for something like this to be implemented - say you only use a particular account once a week or once or twice a month. However, from a business perspective, CCP would be daft in the head to do this.

Cloaking is the closest thing to a "Pause Game" button one can get while in space.

Support better localization for the Japanese Community.

Chloe Cartier
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#30 - 2014-07-18 23:30:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Chloe Cartier
While I do appreciated the concept behind your idea; I must to say that I completely disagree with it; so far 30 days PLEX is working good, if you want to incentive your pals to resub, it much better (in terms of keep them in the game) to give them a 30 days instead of a week.

That cyno pilot can be used for PI, which in the end could possibly ending up paying the PLEX with what is producing, and let's face it, 5 mins to baby sit your planets every day it's not much.

-1
Carniflex
StarHunt
Mordus Angels
#31 - 2014-07-19 08:06:44 UTC
Chloe Cartier wrote:
While I do appreciated the concept behind your idea; I must to say that I completely disagree with it; so far 30 days PLEX is working good, if you want to incentive your pals to resub, it much better (in terms of keep them in the game) to give them a 30 days instead of a week.

That cyno pilot can be used for PI, which in the end could possibly ending up paying the PLEX with what is producing, and let's face it, 5 mins to baby sit your planets every day it's not much.

-1


I did that. Only problem with that is that PI is so bad it makes you want to claw your eyes out. Sure, if you do it on only couple of chars / planets it might seem fine. If you have to refresh over 50 planets every few days it can get to the point where you want to quit EVE over it. So I am not doing any PI atm. For reference bi-daily refresh cycle was about 30.. 35 mins of frantic clicking every few days and hauling trips were twice a month for few hours. Doing low maintenance setup of tier 2 all in one planet with 2 day cycles.

Anyway auxiliary accounts can be used for all kinds of stuff, not only PI. Industry, extra trading slots, etc. Dependent on where exactly you need your clones to be and if you have a spare day in-between for jump-cloning (or you run implant free and just take pod express where you need). How to fund them is not a question really. Established players with enough playtime do not have any problems in my opinion running their alts off the 30 d PLEX - exactly because they have enough playtime for it to make economic sense. More casual players, however, might be in a situation where it does not make economic sense to run an alt off PLEX. One of the side-effects of the current proposal would be that it would make economic sense for the players with a bit more limited play-time to maintain an alt as well.

Problem with giving my pal a 30d. If I do not get him to take interest again in EVE within approximately of a week then it is highly unlikely that I will with the remaining 3 weeks which in essence means a wasted ~600 mil with the current PLEX prices. What would be better use of that playtime would be getting 4 pals back for a week as opposed to getting one pal back for 4 weeks at the same resource cost. In my opinion having 4 pals for a week has added advantage that as there is more people around there is higher probability they have something interesting to do together as I cant babysit them all the time to make sure they are having enough fun to re-sub.

About economic sense of that proposal for CCP. In my opinion it would make sense for them, however, that is exactly that - an opinion. The logic behind that opinion is following: Established players do not have problems maintaining their alts. Casual players can (and probably do) have problems maintaining their alts under the fluctuating PLEX prices. Lowered "reactivation barrier" would increase the casual player alt usage more than it would lower the time when the established player alts are un-subbed when allowing increased flipping frequency (that is speculation in my part). My assumption is that there is more casual player accounts in EVE than established player accounts in EVE.

Here, sanity... niiiice sanity, come to daddy... okay, that's a good sanity... THWONK! GOT the bastard.

Fer'isam K'ahn
SAS Veterinarians
#32 - 2014-07-19 08:45:02 UTC
I am still baffled by the ridiculousness and short sightedness of this concept and the 'casual player' hostage that is waved in front of us.

just imagine you have that shiny Iphone but do not want to pay the regular bill and you have to inject a coin every time you want to call or accept a call under the premiss, 'hey, I might not need the phone the next hour or today'. You can even compare arguments like doing something on the side, like Pi with using the iphone for other things. Sure, there are prepaid cards for some and those are like plex, but I am quite sure there is no business model out there, where you prepay only for 1 phone call - if it would be profitable - IT WOULD EB OUT THERE - believe me.

I still have loads of other objections, but I think this should make it clear ... so who exactly might want a disposable 1 call phone ?
Hmm, yeah, all the casual and peaceful, non-shady characters and upstanding citizens and kids out there on whose behalf you seem to argue [/irony].
Carniflex
StarHunt
Mordus Angels
#33 - 2014-07-19 08:59:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Carniflex
Fer'isam K'ahn wrote:
I am still baffled by the ridiculousness and short sightedness of this concept and the 'casual player' hostage that is waved in front of us.

just imagine you have that shiny Iphone but do not want to pay the regular bill and you have to inject a coin every time you want to call or accept a call under the premiss, 'hey, I might not need the phone the next hour or today'. You can even compare arguments like doing something on the side, like Pi with using the iphone for other things. Sure, there are prepaid cards for some and those are like plex, but I am quite sure there is no business model out there, where you prepay only for 1 phone call - if it would be profitable - IT WOULD EB OUT THERE - believe me.

I still have loads of other objections, but I think this should make it clear ... so who exactly might want a disposable 1 call phone ?
Hmm, yeah, all the casual and peaceful, non-shady characters and upstanding citizens and kids out there on whose behalf you seem to argue [/irony].


I'm not quite following the argument you are trying to make. Is it about suicide ganking with alts? If so then I have already shown that in this regard this proposal would not change anything - what you could do under the presented proposal you would be able to do also today.

And that kind of business models are out there in real life even today. Where I live you can, actually, get a mobile service packet where you pay based on actual usage instead of monthly flat bill. The usage is measured in talk minutes, per messages and data with megabyte accuracy. Obviously in real life you can accept calls all the time. Edit: For clarity - I mean a pre-paid scheme, where you load up a certain amount of funds into account and are free to "do it" as long as there is sufficient funds on your account to do whatever you are up to.

Another similar (more fitting) example is mandatory car insurance scheme in my country. If you want you can sign up for the whole year and pay it in one chunk, however, if you want you can also do the mandatory car insurance for only a one day of the year (or any number of days arranged however you feel like) if you know that this car you want to insure comes out of garage only once a year when there is particularly sunny day.


So all i can say - IT IS OUT THERE - believe me.

Here, sanity... niiiice sanity, come to daddy... okay, that's a good sanity... THWONK! GOT the bastard.

Fer'isam K'ahn
SAS Veterinarians
#34 - 2014-07-19 09:42:45 UTC
Sure, try not to understand me or anyone for that matter. I am pretty sure you still pay for the services even not for single calls. There are always hidden costs, and I am sure you paid for that car and that it is registered otherwise too with other side costs.

Subscription is the long term service, plex the short term, there is no one login/ one day equivalent as for 100km distance insurance with no other costs etc. And I am quite sure you did not pay for "EVE - The Game" either. And no, it does not exist, unless you wanna hairsplit and call public toilets with coins lots the non plus ultra business model and equivalent to how eve should be - the one dumb you take on the game, not sure I want to support this.
Carniflex
StarHunt
Mordus Angels
#35 - 2014-07-19 10:47:02 UTC
Fer'isam K'ahn wrote:
Sure, try not to understand me or anyone for that matter. I am pretty sure you still pay for the services even not for single calls. There are always hidden costs, and I am sure you paid for that car and that it is registered otherwise too with other side costs.

Subscription is the long term service, plex the short term, there is no one login/ one day equivalent as for 100km distance insurance with no other costs etc. And I am quite sure you did not pay for "EVE - The Game" either. And no, it does not exist, unless you wanna hairsplit and call public toilets with coins lots the non plus ultra business model and equivalent to how eve should be - the one dumb you take on the game, not sure I want to support this.


I am actually trying to understand what the objection, exactly, is. In your first reply you pointed out the possibility of using 30 suicide catalysts and I demonstrated that this issue exists regardless if you are subbing in 30 day chunks or 1 day tokens.

Then you are talking about business models, mobile subscription plans, public toilets, etc. Which I am frankly not quite following. Not because I am trying to not understand but because I really do not understand what you are on about.

The discussion about economical viability of using smaller than 30 day subscription tokens is quite a valid one and has been pointed at also in several other posts in this thread. I'm just not understanding if that is what you are talking about or is your grievance somewhere else.

As far as paying for EVE - The Game goes under the present proposal this cost would not change. There is two parts for that payment.
(1) Initial subscription for at least 30 days. If you use PLEX for it it can be used to make a trial account into a full account at the cost of one PLEX. If you are using credit card then last I looked the first 1 month subscription was 5 eur/$ more expensive than just the 30 day subscription fee. This remains the same under the present proposal. For switching trial into full account you would still need to plug in at least 30 days of gametime. Anything less than that would just extend trial duration with all the trial account restrictions applying.
(2) Running subscription costs of being able to log into your account. Per-day cost would remain the same as current PLEX subscription cost. You would be able to just "stretch out" the subscription to only cover the days where you actually can log in. The economic implication to CCP under this scheme have been already discussed in this thread.

Here, sanity... niiiice sanity, come to daddy... okay, that's a good sanity... THWONK! GOT the bastard.

Fer'isam K'ahn
SAS Veterinarians
#36 - 2014-07-19 11:43:59 UTC
Aeh, you did not refute anything and saying that 30 plex invested equals 1 plex hacked in 30 pieces to use or rather misuse said catalysts then it truely shows how difficult it is (or you pretend) for you to understand any counter arguments. In my calcualtion you are still 29 plex short.
An No, we are not talking about the first activation (Shocked) that doesnt matter, we are talking about reactivation. Anyone that pays 30 plex for a few days of multi-alt gank, can do so. I am not fine with activating 10 gank alts over the 3 xmas holidays for 1 plex and griefing the hell out of players (as an example).

And being reminded of 4chan, where trolling is an art form, you surely arte skilled and artistic in not understanding arguments and avoiding the issues....

I ll leave it at that.

Bye
Dally Lama
Doomheim
#37 - 2014-07-19 11:47:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Dally Lama
If anyone was wondering why no one likes discussing ideas with Fer'isam, look no further than this thread. Roll

I actually think the idea is bad too. I just know how to communicate that thought like a properly functioning adult. Fer, I hope you realize the forum moderator who posted in here was referencing you. Yet you still decide to communicate like a rowdy child who's favorite toy was taken away.

Let's see how a petition fairs.
Fer'isam K'ahn
SAS Veterinarians
#38 - 2014-07-19 11:53:08 UTC
Dally Lama wrote:
If anyone was wondering why no one likes discussing ideas with Fer'isam, look no further than this thread. Roll

Right back atcha, same reason why presuppositional apologetics and the other kind, the rational thinking ones are unable to talk to one another, you can guess which category I believe some OPs to be.

And do you have otherwise something constructive to say or a clever scheme to refute how 30plex/30 =/= value of 30 plex.
Carniflex
StarHunt
Mordus Angels
#39 - 2014-07-19 12:12:35 UTC
Fer'isam K'ahn wrote:
Aeh, you did not refute anything and saying that 30 plex invested equals 1 plex hacked in 30 pieces to use or rather misuse said catalysts then it truely shows how difficult it is (or you pretend) for you to understand any counter arguments. In my calcualtion you are still 29 plex short.
An No, we are not talking about the first activation (Shocked) that doesnt matter, we are talking about reactivation. Anyone that pays 30 plex for a few days of multi-alt gank, can do so. I am not fine with activating 10 gank alts over the 3 xmas holidays for 1 plex and griefing the hell out of players (as an example).

And being reminded of 4chan, where trolling is an art form, you surely arte skilled and artistic in not understanding arguments and avoiding the issues....

I ll leave it at that.

Bye


Well - then it is good that I did not try to refute what you were pointing out. I just described currently possible scenario leading to the same situation as you pointed out might emerge under the presented proposal.

First activation was in my opinion the most significant expenditure and in my opinion it would not make sense to exactly re activate gank accounts, however, if one wishes to do so then indeed - under the presented proposal it would be a lot easier - regardless for what purposes it would be done. There is no way around that and that is indeed one of the goals of the presented proposal. To allow easier reactivation of accounts for limited periods of time if you see the need.

On the other hand some other guy who is worried about getting his freighter ganked might activate his warfare links alt, webbing alt and squad of logi alts to "escort" himself making use of the same third party tools as our theoretical ganker for a day. Or just distribute the load into a number of smaller packets which are under the profitable gank threshold and then use the number of auxiliary accounts to move it all in the same amount of time it would have taken him to fly it all in one bigger ship and in the bigger packet.

Five deep space transports which are using mwd-cloak-warp are a bit harder to gank than a single freighter loaded with bulkheads. If you do lose one then you only lose 1/5 th of the load as opposed to losing it all. Even activating just one extra account for webs would lover the probability of the gank somewhat.

So in my opinion it is balanced in that regard. You are ofc free to disagree.

Here, sanity... niiiice sanity, come to daddy... okay, that's a good sanity... THWONK! GOT the bastard.

Michael Ignis Archangel
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#40 - 2014-07-25 19:52:18 UTC
Gully Alex Foyle wrote:
Michael Ignis Archangel wrote:
KIller Wabbit wrote:

Since PLEX is a liability to CCP's revenue recognition this would certainly improve the balance sheet.


As a RL accountant, I would ask you to seek a better understanding of deferred revenue and its impact on cash flows and earnings before throwing around terms from the first week of Accounting 101.

I also don't like this idea, and the notion of handing them out as part of the gameplay breaks a key relationship in the Eve economy - that outside extraordinary events, all existing PLEX were created from RL currency.
This is interesting.

Does ccp really count plex as deferred revenue?

If yes, do you think they could also choose to not do so, since plex is also an in-game asset that doesn't necessarily need to be consumed to provide a service?


There are arguments for and against. On the one hand it's an utterly nonrefundable thing; there is no way to convert PLEX to currency out of CCPs pocket. On the other hand assuming that they are converted into play time there are expenses in future periods (servers, staff, etc) that should be matched with the revenue of the redeemed PLEX.

For an example imagine if everyone bought a bunch of PleX tomorrow and subbed their accounts for three years. It would be odd to recognize that revenue immediately since there would theory be no additional revenue for another three years.

I'm too lazy to look up their financials though so... Yeah.

My point is that from an analysis of cashflows deferred revenue is generally not a bad thing, especially when it is nonrefundable. Companies have negative earnings but positive cash flow and be ok for some time, conversely high earnings but bad cashflows is a ticket to bankruptcy court.
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