EVE General Discussion

ccp controls the isk price of plex. increase the rat bounties up 10% or down 10% and see the price of plex go up/down accordingly. (players get more or less isk to spend on plex at a steady supply of plex)

I think 507 Trillion of income a year from rat bounties is a very hard control.

When did paying real money to play a game become a problem?

Rule #1 of EvE, if you can't afford to replace it don't fly it.

If you can't afford to sub the account, don't.

Perhaps if CCP saw more realistic player behavior tied to "real" money - not isk earned - you would see behaviors surrounding PLEX (such as the mentioned aurum items) change to be more favorable to account usage.

I personally own one plex - a present from CCP at some point - and sit on it for as a rainy day fund. I don't trade in them, I don't aspire to earn them to 'play to play'. I see them as a monetary device for CCP (which is totally normal) and simply that. When I use alt accounts, I pay for them. When the cash gets short or the alt useless, I unsub them.

Why on earth would I work harder IN A GAME to pay for the game?! Some folks have an answer, I don't. PLEX prices, though, have zero bearing on this game so far as I'm concerned except in its ability to allow those of us with cash (real) to influence the game (not real)...and that is the crux of the reason OP and others like them care about plex prices.

After doing a little research in it's simpelist form "PLEX" is basically a gift card for EVE. I have read alot of the comments on here about doing time limits. I do agree with this in a sense but this does pose some legal problems if CCP was to inact this type of policy. I would point to Gift card regulations inacted in the USA around 2010. Basically this law was passed to protect gift card holders from unreasonable time limits. It pushed the inactivity to 5 years with annual fees in most cases. However it boils down to what the states do to regulate the Gift card program as well. Needless to say very complicated. In all Honesty i would push for a Fee to be paid by the plex holder if the plex is held for longer than one year. If the feee is not paid then thats CCP's call. Again legal implications would have to be looked at.
On the other side why Plex has gone up so much is relatively easy to awnser. When you have more than one outlet in the alogrythem the price always goes up. So if the Skill points are added to this i can honestly see plex going to 2 bill at its highest point. Mixing Arum and Plex would do absolutly nothing to the price unless you could only purchase Arum with an external payment and not Plex, this would close one of those algorythem loops and force the price of PLEX down. Also CCP interjecting more PLEX into the market to help stabalize prices would help but not as much as one would think. It's like printing your own money. It might prop up some things for ahwile but in the end you would land in the same situation. I use to Plex very heavily back in the day but to be honest if i can't at least make my isk back in two weeks of game play off one toon i wont plex that toon at all. I consider it a waste.

Aurum is a dumb currency, at least CCP games has not introduced more, there are MMO's out there that have like a dozen currencies.

I would love to see PLEX being chopped up in smaller parts, up to 1-day licenses, and the Company trashing Aurum as Fiat money.

Regards, a Freelancer

Hmph, your crass little wench......

I have a friend that we still talk to each other on teamspeak from time to time.....
He has a daughter, a disabled wife that requires his full time attention these days.
They live on a fixed income as he is requried to stay at home.
He uses games for entertainment, but has limited play time.
As PLEX prices rose exponentially over the past 3 or so years it became increasingly difficult for him to plex his account
A single acount, a single main character that was the only one that recieved training.
He loves EvE, but he can no longer play.....because of his limited time he is unable to grind the high cost of plexing.
I feel he derserves to be able to play, but he is also a person that refuses handouts, and is a full on Combat PvP'r.

If you like you can look him up, Wolf Kruol, check his killboard or what not. Others that know him I am sure could attest how great a guy he is.

I am sure there are many players in similiar situations or not exact to Wolf's nature have quit playing from no fault of their own, simply they can no longer PLEX, as in earn their way to continue playing.

So maybe show some empathy, that or STFU because your a really lame person.

Anybody like Wolf that is still playing, if your close to quitting also....send me an in game mail, i might have some ideas that might help you keep afloat if what your doing now is not cutting it.

Get off your ass and earn it.

People are always boasting about 100 million ISK per hour... sure.. okay. Even half that is doable.

So... let's review... less than an hour a day, which you're going to play anyway, and over the course of a month you can afford a PLEX... with time and ISK to spare...

O
M
G

It's not about empathy it's about people having the hobby they can afford, either in time or money. If your friend can't grind a PLEX per month and does not have the RL income to sub to the game, then he should not choose EVE as his hobby.

I'm sorry for your friend, but there is no such thing as a "right to play EVE". If his situation is so dire that he can't spare 50 cents (USD) per day on entertainment, then he shouldn't be worried about any of that, but rather concentrating on his real life responsibilities.

All at once I'm glad we have PLEX (it's nice to see my ingame activities translate into something 'tangible' like game time), but at the same time I hate the sense of entitlement PLEX creates. It makes the game seem 'free' and when people get it in their heads that that have been playing a game for 'free', 15 bucks seems like a whole lot of money. It's not.

The problem here isn't the price of PLEX, it's the perceptions of people who came to depend on it when they shouldn't have.

Radical idea - Pay for the game?