EVE General Discussion

NOTE: This is not a regular "PLEX is too expensive - the sky is falling" thread. In fact, I don't mention or deal with the price of PLEX in this post at all.

PLEX has always been a hot topic, so I thought to share my views on it. It doesn't mean that I think this is the general opinion. I know it isn't. You are free to share your own.

I've played a lot of games before EVE. No MMOs, just regular single/multi player games. In every game there are cheat codes which I have used in replays. That was my own rule - to experience the real game before using cheat codes. The most used cheat code is, of course, the one that gives you in-game resources as it makes it easier to bare the re-play (since you already know how the game is going to end).

In eve, the main resource is ISK and PLEX is a "cheat code" with one difference: you pay for your cheat code. Since EVE is a game that doesn't end, I feel that if I buy the PLEX to sell it for ISK, I would effectively use the most powerful cheat that gives me instant resources. I've tried that in just of a couple of games in the past and I simply couldn't get rid of the feeling that I broke the game and that it became too easy.

The second point is that in any other game (still not including MMOs), there is a limit for resources which can not be spent during a normal game session. Once you acquire that amount of resources, you can simply forget about the resources altogether, because there are no more goals that would require you to have more resources. Since you have eliminated resources from your game, there is a feeling that you did everything you can to acquire enough resources to do anything in the game.

EVE is not like that. No matter how much ISK you have, there are always goals that require you to have even more ISK (other than having more ISK per se, of course). There is always that need to set a higher goal and require more ISK, which never ends. Don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself a carebear. I haven't been able to be much active in the last couple of years, but whenever I am, I either fly solo in low/null or join a PvP alliance (or alliance that has PvP). ISK hoarding is not my thing. I have 2 bil in my wallet after 8 years of playing, and that easily drops to a couple of hundreds of millions at times when I'm actively playing ).

The third point is that if I sell PLEX to fill my wallet, I'd effectively eliminate the need for a huge part of gameplay. Basically, anything that produces ISK: industry, exploration, missions, complexes, mining (ok, not mining... mining is doesn't involve any gameplay anyway), PI ... all of that becomes redundant. If I decide to fill my wallet by selling PLEXes, I know that I would always do that, so playing anything that is in the game purely for making ISK would quickly become unjustified for me, since at that point I'd have enough ISK, I'd have an endless source of ISK and I'd always have something else other than making ISK to do in the game. I would distance myself from huge parts of the game. The reason why I started and continued to play EVE is because of its diversity and that diversity would be gone if I start PLEXing my wallet.

For me, the only useful and non game breaking use of the PLEX is to sell a couple of them as an investment which will, by active gameplay, produce more ISK in the future.

TL;DR:
- PLEX is a "cheat code" for giving you game resources;
- There is no limit on the amount of ISK that covers all game's goals that I can have;
- PLEXing the wallet ruins my gameplay experience by making huge parts of the game obsolete;
- For me, PLEX is only useful as an investment that would yield more ISK;

edit: Maybe bad and controversial TL;DR, but if you are interested in the subject, it's all explained in the post. Also, this is NOT, by any means "I hate PLEX" kind of a thread

Sorry Im still not following you

Someone with a lot of Isk has an advantage that someone without any isk has

It doesn't make it impossible to do anything without Isk, it just requires more effort

- For me, PLEX is only useful as an investment that would yield more ISK

There's no guarantee that will always be the case...

Thats the part I understand.

It was what you said about "Except in my case, I don't see everything that selling PLEX for ISK gives as an advantage." that I dont understand.

Surely having investment capital is an advantage as it allows you to buy the ships, modules and infrastructure you need to do whatever it is that entertains you

If you look at it from another perspective, a scammer doesn't always know the outcome of his advert and can't control the time point where he would get ISK from his scheme. Expectations are involved and waiting time for a reward that is ISK. It's a mental game used even in RL as well. Waiting and hoping can produce happiness when the result is presented. Lottery players know that the best.

You can also look at it this way.

Do you think the game is good enough to be worth subbing your accounts?

If yes, forget about PLEX, sub your accounts and give your money directly to CCP to (hopefully) continue developing the game you love.


People often say that PLEXing your accounts gives money to CCP too, only indirectly.

But 'indirectly' is the key word here. PLEXing your accounts increases PLEX demand, which may or may not increase PLEX supply. If PLEX supply doesn't increase, you're just nabbing the PLEX from somebody else that doesn't make enough ISK to afford it: CCP doesn't get anymore money.

Market dynamics and speculation certainly complicate things, but it's undeniable that the safest bet to give your money to CCP - if you think they and the game deserve it - is by subbing your accounts.

I agree to an extent. However, there are many ways to sell multiple PLEXes other than using the market.

- You don't have to dump it all in one region. You can spread it to multiple regions to limit the price drop;
- Contracts are also useful to an extent;
- Almost every big alliance that I was a part of had a forum post in their internal forum that deals with buying huge amounts of PLEX-es for funding sitting supercap/titan pilots used in defense, industrial alt accounts that ran the alliances economy or whatever. The prices offered were below market price, but they were usually good enough and you get a bonus feeling of supporting your alliance.
- Bulk trading mailing lists can be used to sell under the market radar;

I'm not saying that there is no limit to the amount of PLEX that you can sell without crashing the market, but rather that the amount of PLEX that you can sell to use for your own personal needs is high enough that you should not worry about crashing the market. Also, as I mentioned, there are ways of diminishing the impact on the global price to give you more room if you need it.