EVE New Citizens Q&A

Note that the 500k subscriber figure is I believe the number of paid for accounts. And given the nature of the game (Plex!) it very possible for the richer players (especially the economy players) to be running multiple accounts to support their activities. This inflated the subscriber figure a bit/a lot depending on how heavy you think this practice happens.

A paid account is a paid account, doesn't really matter who paid for it... PLEX don't (usually) pop out of thin air, somebody had to pay cash to make them appear in the first place.
And the last time they gave any sort-of-official figures, between 20% and 25% of paid accounts were paid for with PLEX.

P.S. If you mean "number of people playing" vs "number of paid accounts", that's a bit more difficult to ascertain (for a number of reasons I won't delve into unless you insist).
And yes, it's fairly obvious there's far more paid accounts than actual people playing (the occasional account sharings notwithstanding).
Gut guesstimate? I'd say about 1.5 accounts per real-life person on average. With a lot of people having just one, a decent number having 2, a few 3 or more, and very few entire armies of accounts.

I don't know what number did you expected to see online, but 40k online is great in a game like EvE, it's a single-server environment, their are no realms like in other games, for exemple in themepark games like world of warcraft the server/realm capacity is 3000 players online.

EvE Online has subscribers all over the world., while you are sleeping the game keeps going, people from the other side of the world are playing.

Please elaborate.....

Darian

If you are genuinely interested about the server population of people logging into the game at any given time you can go here:

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility

CCP makes the information easily accessible and that site tracks the number of players online.

According to some players EVE Online has been in "decline" since it opened.

Strangely, the overall population of the game has steadily increased year over year since release.

And yet there are constantly posts in the forums loudly proclaiming the impending "death" of EVE Online and how it is "dying."

And, Darian, the value of PLEX is whatever people are willing to pay for it. You may be willing to pay up to a maximum of 350 million ISK and that's great. Other people are clearly willing to pay more so the market will reflect that. If you want to discuss the merits of market forces I would suggest making use of the subforum dedicated to that topic: Market Discussions ( https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=253 ).

The number is the amount of active accounts, it includes trial accounts active as well.

500K sounds reasonable when you consider EVE is an international game covering all timezones and is played mostly by older gamers with jobs & families.
That 500k figure would include have to include alt accounts, so id guess maybe 150-200K individuals at most.

I think 500K is an inflated number, but I don't think it matters. There are plenty of people where ever you go (except maybe null sec?). In fact, I think it's harder to find a nice quiet spot to yourself if that's what you want.

Actually, the proper measure for PLEX "pricing" is not really absolute in-game ISK nor absolute RL-cash, but rather hours (as a work-equivalent, be it in-game or in RL) which then translate into different ISK amounts depending on player.

For somewhat casual players with decent (not even that high) RL wages, a PLEX might be worth 1-2 hours of RL work but 20-30 hours of in-game work.
For them, if thinking about buying PLEX with ISK, even 100 mil ISK might seem like way too high.
Obviously, they'll usually be only selling PLEX for ISK.

For hardcore expert players with very low RL wages, a PLEX might be worth 12-24 hours of RL work but 2-3 hours of in-game work.
For them, if thinking about selling PLEX for ISK, even 3 billion ISK might not seem like anywhere close to enough.
Obviously, they'll usually be only buying PLEX for ISK.

In-game ISK price of PLEX reflects the overall balance between the two separate camps (well, in reality, it's not like there's two distinct camps, rather a very long string of assessments in a row stretching more or less uniformly from one extreme to the other, with people shifting places all the time on the spectrum).

Also, not every player can get extra work hours in RL, but most can easily get more in-game work done, and not all regard in-game work as actual work, which further skews the balance point towards higher ISK values for a PLEX beyond what you'd expect otherwise.

How exactly does one determine how much PLEX is REALLY worth? It's an item on the open market. Its value is dictated by supply and demand. So if it's selling at 500-600 mil, guess what? That's what it's worth!