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You make it appear here as if we are actually buying the SP with AUR, rather than the extractor. In reality, the SP are generated by some subscribed character. Since optimally one can train about four skill packets a month with one character, that means the "raw resource" price for a skill packet is 0.25*PLEX.

The extractor is a pure "overhead" imposed arbitrarily by CCP. As such it can in principle cost anything, since it has no necessary relationship to the game. I think it should be an in-game rare drop instead, which would resolve the "cash grab" whine. But we know that CCP does want to cash in on this.

So we can take your estimate, which more or less gives the "SP to AUR" cost, and ask what kind of overhead would be sensible. I think 10% to 20% would be reasonable. And thus we arrive at a cost of about 100-200 AUR, whereas about 500 AUR (50% overhead!) surely is a pain threshold. That is exactly what I posted many pages back.

I think CCP would be well advised to keep the AUR price low on the extractor (or even better, make it a drop in-game instead). I've been a strong supporter from the start, but that also means I will be angry if CCP sets some ridiculous price on this. There's nothing worse than getting people's hopes up and then disappointing them...

In the end, I think one should pay about 350M-400M ISK for a skill injector with 500k SP on Jita. That is within a newbie's reach, assuming that the newbie has paid real cash for their month of game time. In fact, it would be a better "per month ISK sink" goal for newbies than trying to PLEX their account. If you play hard and/or smart as a newbie, and generate 350M-400M ISK above expenses per month, you get to progress 25% faster. If you play harder and/or smarter, and generate 700M-800M ISK, you progress 50% faster. Etc.

That sort of price point may also lead to altruistic / speculative gifting of skill injectors to newbies. Newbie joins your corp, do you give him a skill injector to get him up to speed? If the price is too high, then that is too risky. But if the price is low enough, then you can play a "win some, lose some" game here...

If PLEX prices do not inflate too much (which again is helped by a low AUR price of the extractor), and if overheads remain in the 10-20% range, then a skill injector price of 350M-400M ISK is quite possible - and I mean the steady, long term price. On introduction, I expect considerable fluctuations, and probably more down than up.

Oh and while I'm posting I'm copyrighting the phrase 'Let us do the training, so you don't have to...' right here.

Any in game mass SP farm that wishes to use the tagline can do so for a mere 5% of SP they generate sales for by using it :)

Disclaimer: This is in no way a dig at you, but rather I wanted a genuine new players view on what is required to be 'efective'

So at ~ 2 mil SP per PLEX + 20% that's 6 - 8 PLEX cost? That's £90 as a six pack here in the UK. £90 on top of the initial sign up fee to become 'effective'...and people are saying this is 'good' for new players???

Note: I in no way agree that it takes this much SP for a player to be 'effective'. A player can add dps to any fleet and be useful, if you get primaried (as a new player in a relatively small ship) in anything beyond small gang fights you are going to die whether you are in t1 or bling fit pirate ships so it doesn't make that much difference for a new player who decides (for instance) to join spectre fleets for PvP experience or similar.

Likewise in a supply chain a new player can make the tech I/bulk items to help the more experience manufacturer further up the chain and so on. It is not the number of SP as such that holds new players back, it's getting in with the right kind of corp for that player.

so when we get to know the price of the extractors?
i think allot depend on this "little" detail, so how long till CCP will announce it?

The Charecter Bazaar, as we can now see, was the thin end of the wedge as some of us suggested at the time.

CCP defended the introduction of the Character Bazaar on the grounds that it helped combat RMT.

Cash for skills cannot be explained away on this basis.

With the cheapest AUR package being $5 for (let's round it to) 1000 AUR, even if CCP picks this cheapest price for the extractor, someone wanting to extract 50 million skillpoints would have to spend $500. Someone wanting to buy 50 million skillpoints would have to pay $500 + 25 PLEX = $1000.

Total money spent on an extraction + injection session for 50 million points = $1,500, spent by various parties (even if the PLEX is bought with ISK, someone has to buy it with RL money and put it on the market). A year's subscription is $132; 1 person rearranging 50 million skillpoints is worth 11 years of subscription to CCP.

People are using the "rich kids" examples as if they'll be common, when in fact $500 is unheard of in this community where we're complaining that $15/mo is too much to pay for a game.

Well thank you, another argument that this has nothing to do with helping new players to catch up.

you were a new player once

but now you have basic access to most of the basic ships.


now look at it from a new player. every day that passes, it becomes a bit more daunting for a new player to join as the "average" total SP of a person becomes higher and higher.

so reaching the "average" becomes more and more of a uphill climb.





for new players, how many leave EVE because of the 2 week training time for some of the basic ships. they get bored w8ing after 2-3 days because there is nothing they can do to speed it up.

the only thing thye can do is wait or buy from the character bazaar(and if u go that path, whats the point of making your own character)

and if they wait, chances are they get bored. go play other games, and forget EVE entirely. EVE already has a hard learning curve, but it doesnt help that alot of those who survive the learning curve leave at this point. so EVE loses more players than it should.



this skill injector aims to make it so playing your own character YOU created is more viable for new players. they can spend the 2 weeks grinding for isk to buy skill injectors to make the 2 weeks shorter. (aka do something other than w8)



its not a pay to win mechanic as it does nothing that the character bazaar doesn't let you do already.



the character bazaar is actually cheaper in terms of the SP per $ you get

skill injectors will cost more in terms of SP per $. so its more ideal for those who don't want a massive ammount of new SP from a new character, but instead want a tiny boost to an existing character.




yes people will make alts to farm SP. but they already do that for the character bazaar. there are people who have 3-4 + accounts that just train up new characters. with the aim to sell on the character bazaar.






since this does NOTHING that the character bazaar doesn't already do(aka let you buy higher SP). the complaints here are useless.



for people who want real pay to win. i'd suggest going to World of Tanks to see what P2W is.(gold rounds)

1000 AUR is not the "cheapest" price for an item in the online store. The cheapest clothing items cost 100 AUR each (various boots, shirts and tights). And 100 AUR is just what I suggest the skill extractor should cost.

That somebody who wants to buy 50M SP has to pay for 25 PLEX is neither here nor there. Yes, that's a lot of US$, but then that's (more or less) what you are willing to pay by subscribing as well. (In reality, one would save a lot of money by direct subscription rather than buying PLEX.)

So whining about those US$500 (or whatever) really makes no sense, other than perhaps if this is the first time you realise just how much EVE is costing you...

The question is exactly what premium CCP will extract via the entirely arbitrary "overhead" of having to pay for the skill extractors. And yes, I agree, if they charged 100% overheads then that would be stupidly greedy and greedily stupid.

But if they asked for 10% overheads (100 AUR per extractor), then this would be merely US$50 extra (above the basic SP costs of US$500 or so) when shopping for 50M SP. I think that is quite acceptable for such an acceleration.

I hardly class myself as a vet.

I never once waited for a skill to complete before playing the game, I simply played with the skills I had whilst others trained. As a new player these are all pretty much low multiplier skills that don't take that long anyway and would typically complete before you next log in.

So which is it? You need 10-15 mill to be effective or you can be effective incrementally as you train up skills? If you need that 10-15 mill then you'd better pay the £90+ straight up (that's a conservative estimate by the way, almost certainly it would be higher).

If you can be effective incrementally as you train up skills then cerebral accelerator implants built in game by players would have been a better choice. But then that wouldn't increase revenue in the same way would it? Even if it would be better for a new player too.



I never forgot about the skill queue as it was (before this change) a part of the game to create and grow your character. Soon the space or RL rich will be able to circumvent that to a degree which diminishes the game in my view. I also never fixated on being perfect at any career. I trained the necessary skills to level III or IV as required and just got on with the game in the meantime. As I determined whether I wanted to go further with that career I specialized some training into it whilst learning how to use the lower level skills to their maximum effect. Never once have I not logged in due to a skill training.

Anybody who tells a player they have to set skills to train then logout for an amount of time is telling them an outright lie.



To use your example: You can run 100m in say 12 s, the guy who beats you can run it in 11.5s. Now he can run 200m in 25s, but you and your similar standard friend relay that distance and complete it in 24s. This is the heart of EvE, you need friends to compete. The 5% you mention does make a difference, but it doesn't mean you can't compete. I am in no way a perfect tech III manufacturer yet I can turn a good profit. Someone with perfect skills will get 5-10% more profit than me but I don't care about that, I care that my profit is enough for me.

Players really need to focus on what they can do now and have fun with it whilst planning for what they want to do in future.