EVE General Discussion

*sigh* EVE would be so much more interesting if there was some magical way to enforce 1 account, 1 character per player. But of course, that's not possible. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

The obvious end result is that buying a character is not even remotely the same as — or even related to — selling SP.

If you buy a character, you're picking up a collection of skills that have been accumulated over the regular period of time using all the standard mechanisms and restrictions for building up skills. You're transferring time spent (not entirely unlike PLEX, but in the opposite direction). Also, you're stuck with a completely different character. It doesn't add to your SP — in fact, it probably duplicates large portions. Finally, you only ever get what's on offer. If no-one has bothered to build the skill mix you need and is willing to sell it, you're stuck. You can throw as much ISK at the problem as you like, and nothing will happen. You could order one but it'll take a year or five before it's ready. All in all, the character economy doesn't change one whit; nothing that didn't exist already was added.

This as opposed to the idea of actually selling SP, where you skip over the time required to build skills; where the standard mechanisms and restrictions don't apply; where you don't get stuck with another character; where you simply can't get the kind of duplication a second character generates; and where you get exactly what you want when you want it (and where you want it). Suddenly, the character economy is… oh… pretty much left in ruins overnight and the time-based mechanics meant to regulate it are rendered absolutely pointless. All old characters, and the time spent on them, are in one stroke rendered worthless. New abilities are only limited by how much people are willing to spend (i.e. they're not limited at all).

Oh, and CCP isn't selling any characters. Other players are. Again unlike how it would be if CCP sold SP.

The difference between what you're doing and outright purchase of SP should be obvious - Someone still had to own and train the character for the time it took those skill points to accumulate. The only thing that even vaguely supports your arguement is if I bought a character that was the same age as mine but that had been more optimised towards SP gain during its life, hence having more SP than me for the same age of character. That however falls down when you realise that if I had done the same thing with my origional character I would have exactly the same SP for the time invested, I simply chose not to. So in that example what I end up paying for is the additional optimisation, which has a side effect of giving me more SP, rather than paying directly for more SP.

If CCP simply said 'pay us {an amount of money] and instantly add [a number of SP] to your account' that would be selling SP and would rightly be condemned, but they havent done that yet and I doubt they ever will.

Dust 514 on the other hand is giving out bonus SP to players that log in daily and increases it each day they continusually log in to a limit.

I think you are right and I would not be against CCP allowing us to ACTUALLY buy 30 days worth of SP with a PLEX. Waiting for skills to finish is for the patient and after 8 years I'm still not that patient. :(