Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I was thinking a bit about why not make PLEX a bit more granular. Say, 1d tokens? Of cource I'm a bit biased with this proposal. I have three cyno accounts, but I do not need them every day.

(1) Allow one to transfer a 30d PLEX into 1d gametime tokens through right click menu in station. Rest of the PLEX process could remain as it is. These would be market tradeable.
(2) To avoid some obvious problems which this might introduce (mainly related to trial account restrictions) make it so that you can transfer a trial account into a full account only with a full 30d PLEX.
(3) The 3 day training grace period - to avoid people abusing the 3d training grace period make it so that if character was last subbed with a 1d token the training is paused immediately upon subscription end without the 3 day grace period.
(4) Possible additional restrictions? Say, inability to light cynos while on "hours for PLEX". Pausing industry jobs if subscription has expired?

More granularity would allow one to exercise some more options. Say, inviting some old fart back into EVE to give it another try and donating him a week of PLEX tokens (with the current prices full 30d might be a bit cost prohobitive for that besides, if the guy wont get back in EVE within a week the possibility is remote that he will during the 3 additional weeks). And ofcource the ability to switch "ON" additional accounts when you need them / have game time. I'd imagine some people who are letting their accounts just expire currently as a result of PLEX prices and/or lack of game-time might bring on their alts for, say, a weekend when they do actually have a game-time.

So what do you think? Any obvious exploit I have missed?

Yeeeessss..... but unless you can obtain this 1d extension in other way than buying it.
Drops/complexes ...

No incentive for CCP to do this since it would make tracking true numbers on a lot of "active" subscriptions next to impossible, which is something that investors find important.

Granular PLEX would make a great way for smaller corps to reward corp members for good deeds. It needs to be evenly granular, so a 5 day coin would be perfect.

Since PLEX is a liability to CCP's revenue recognition this would certainly improve the balance sheet.

How is anything you said of value ? You can transmit ISK which is more practical than adding 1 or 5 days to the account or trading it for ... ISK ? And you can but Plex for guess what ... ISK °°
You already got all the tools at hand. And if ISK becomes meaningless, hand out some Quafe, Female Dancers or some other nice things to have. I do and have received some and guess what - I won't trade them for ISK. They are sentimenatl gifts.

These glorious ideas appear to me that they are just put out to soothe the ego, give it some strokes by 'I suggested something'. The suggestion of an achievment in such a case is an illusion.
How about adding ISM , Inter Stellar Megakredits, with 1 ISM = 1 million ISK. Then instead of having to call it 12 billion we can call it 12.000 ISM. Dumb ?
Same grand and pointless suggestion we come across every day. Or wait, lets make 1/30th plex tokens....!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM, Headshot!

Btw., where is the that smiley ?

That is the basic difficulty, I think. If this was available, would you spend more (either ISK or cash) on PLEX to activate those cyno alts now and then, or less because each activation cost you 1/30 what it does at the moment? What about for multi-accounted people in general? I don't know and nor does CCP (and so, I imagine, it might only happen in baby steps, with half-PLEXen being offered first).

Granularity - key point

Well under the present proposal nothing would change in regards of PLEX being the gold standard. All it would allow would be chopping up your 1 kg gold bar into smaller chunks.



I think it already is kind of fuzzy for them. For example, I have one main account which is always subbed when I'm playing. And then I have number of auxiliary accounts that flip on and off based on my needs and economic considerations. In that regard nothing would change except, perhaps, the frequency of the on/off for accounts.

I mean it might not make sense to "bring on" an additional account for full 30 days, but I might do it if I could get, say, for example, a week of game-time on that account. On the other hand in some situations I might ofc opt for shorter durations in situations where I would bring on an account, say, for 3 weeks and let it just sit there for the last week of the sub if I'm not needing it.

As far as keeping track of active accounts - simple - use some kind of sliding average, say last week or last month average active subs number. Same way, say, like the ingame market averages are calculated. Or if wanting to keep it simple just take snapshots at peak activity times.



Would it? I'm not so sure about it myself. Full EVE experience starts at 2 accounts you know. It would lover the bar in that regard allowing people to bring on their alts in more granular way. Currently, if you have an inactive alt account the question is "is it worth it to bring it on for 30 days"? which frankly, might not be the case if you have lowish playtime. So the auxiliary account would remain firmly unsubbed. Now if the situation would be more granular one might bring their alt active for a weekend or their day off. In addition it would help to retain the people because of they getting their "full EVE experience" when they do play.

In addition I would see it encouraging more people to take the power of 2 offers. As they would have access to these additional characters when they need to.


In addition - I saw earlier mentioning of how it would make it "too easy" to train gank catalysts or covert ops alts. I did not quite follow the logic to be honest. I mean the training time is the same regardless of what subscription method you use, rules are the same and the same consequences (in the case of suicide gank) apply, i.e., recycling neg sec status guys is still illegal. And for actually making use of these characters one still needs to have a sub.

If one is really worried about it then there is always possible to implement additional restrictions. Say, for example limited number of granular PLEX activations per month, say, for example, 4 activations. So you can choose if you sub in 1 week chunks over the whole month or activate in 1 day chunks with few days intervals and then get "locked out" for the remainder of the month (although I would still allow "full activation" with credit card or full PLEX even then).

Alternative way of handling trial accounts and "x" day PLEX tokens. Make the PLEX tokens to extend the trial (with all the trial constraints in place) until a total of 30 days of gametime have been added to the account. That way people could still just upgrade their account with the PLEX like they do today but there would also be possibility of "extending" trial until you build up enough funds / gametime.

Additional advantage would be that it would be a bit harder to "starve out" people. Currently, if PLEX price spikes, say, a day before someones subscription is due it is possible that this someone might be unable to afford the PLEX and thus would have to unsub. If the PLEX is more granular that someone might have a bit easier time to scrape together something for couple extra days and grind up more isk for the spiked PLEX.

Does it really change that that much? Perhaps for some people. I see it mostly affecting the more "causal" players. Giving them the same access to auxiliary alts when they need it as the more dedicated guys.

What I mean with that is that it does not matter all that much if a guy with 3 accounts runs 3 more when he has a free weekend. What is, however, significant change is when a guy who currently has only one account runs two more when he has a free weekend.

For all practical purposes EVE is already alts-online. No one "solo" PvP's, for example, without some links and perhaps a falcon alt.

I'm personally are not particularly good example I think. I am running mine on credit card and I have significantly more than three accounts active atm. Sure, with that change I might make some 3 to 4 accounts more perhaps but with my number of accounts it would not be such a radical change. Do note that I do not use ISBoxer. So when I do multi-account my effectivity drops pretty fast once I fly more than 3 accounts simultaneously with any setups that need half-decent amount of management and/or attention.

Now about the gank calatyst alts specifically. In that regard nothing really changes under the present proposal. The trial account limitation still apply until the guy has accumulated 30d of gametime on his account (which is the same as currently, you can PLEX your trial into full account atm no problems) - until that point there is no difference between the regular 14/21d trial account and a trial account that has used these tokens. Similarly one can use one currently PLEX to take his gank catalyst account into full account and then gank until all three slots are in deep negative and just let the account drop. Recycling neg sec status characters is still prohibited. So nothing really changes as far as I can see. Unless your mean ability to bring the account online for shorter periods of time than 30 days which is one of the fundamental properties of this proposal indeed and applies to all accounts from Titans all the way down to offgrid links and gank catalysts.