EVE New Citizens Q&A

Is buying PLEX with real $$ and selling in game for ISK frowned upon by the playerbase ala doing business with asian gold farmers?

I mean, i understand its legal, and its CCP's method of eliminating illegal ISK farmers .. but my real question is if its frowned upon by the playerbase ... like would you look upon a player who uses PLEX selling as his in game income source as a "cheater" or someone who doesnt "deserve" what he has accomplished or the ships he/she flies?

Nope it's perfectly acceptable. It was mainly brought in to curb the gold farmers and saying that I can't even remember the last time I saw "selling ISK" spam :)

the more plex are on the market the easir it gets for me to plex 7 accounts

That is exactly how I look at it. I work hard, but make a good living. So when I started this game I took advantage of the special offers. One of those is where you get someone to invite you for a free 21 day trial, and then when you subscribe, they get a PLEX. The one I did it with for two accounts 100% honored the deal. He sold it and got a lot of ISK and so did I when he paid me for it.

I seriously doubt CCP would provide a month's subscription to pro players for ISK otherwise, so I suspect those pro players like that this is in the game every bit as much as a player like myself does.

I consider it acceptable. However, in Crime & Punishment there is a thread about someone who sub'd to the game and also bought $400 worth of plex to start off. He bought shiny new ships thinking that money and big ships will win this game. He got his shiny new ships shot down and his shiny new butt handed to him. Moral is whereas plex will get you a ton of in game money - that money doesn't give you the advantage it might in another game. A shiny new ship with out the skills trained to fly it is just a target for someone who likes to pvp. Buy 1 if you want to get you started but you should be able to make money fairly quickly without them.

As the story related earlier indicates, it is not using PLEX to fund your ingame activities that will draw scorn from your peers, it is engaging in foolish combat using poorly thought out tactics in badly fitted ships that will draw scorn from your peers.

Investigate the history Siigari Kitawa, a player who had no hesitation to pump lots of money into the game, experiment with fits that everyone else said wouldn't work, and pull off something like running 10/10 DEDs in a frigate. Everyone loved piling scorn upon Siigari's failures (often involving questions like "why didn't you try it in EFT", from the same people who chide others for "EFT warrioring"), but there's very little discussion about Siigari's successes.

Which reminds me about the story of Bob the Goat Lover.

You see Bob was a talented builder. He could build all kinds of stuff, using all kinds of materials. In fact in his home town he built this amazing marina using hardwood and stone. But do people remember him as "Bob the Marina Builder"? No. He also built a stadium, mostly concrete and reinforcing steel, with a catenery arch dome and amazing lighting. But do people remember him as "Bob the Stadium Builder?" Nope. Another of Bob's accomplishments was upgrading a highway from a two lane goat track to a six lane, dual carriage way, split grade freeway. But do people remember him as "Bob the Freeway Builder"? No. But then there was that one time when someone caught Bob having indecent relations with a goat.

So be prepared to cop some flak from people for the times that you make mistakes with lots of ISK. Feel free to experiment, but have or grow a thick skin.

this is true for most players, but there are individuals who actually enjoy making money. and this is not limited to EVE as we all well know.

Thank you for paying for my subscription! I very much like guys like you!

I'm kinda broke at the moment with lots of time on my hands. I'm fairly new to EVE but because of people like you I can afford to play the game without giving 1 EUR for it. I don't consider getting ISK as grinding, but am kinda enjoying it.

I also like spending ISK on my alt, getting ships that will blow up or make other players blow up

Wait, i'm confused - I thought buying plex with real life money was frowned upon and not allowed?

Where do you buy plex from then that you can sell ingame, legally?

That's for buying timecodes, which when input into the game become PLEX. It's a small difference, but I believe buying/selling PLEX itself for real world cash is against the rules.

Edit: You can of course buy and sell timecodes in the Timecode Bazaar to your heart's content.