EVE General Discussion

PLEX was a stroke of genius. Cashing in on the demand represented by a very real black market for in-game items, CCP decided to cut out the middle-man and offer PLEX. Now anyone with a spare few hundred/thousand bucks could buy their way into the sweetest ship and fittings they ever dreamed of.

This punched the black market in the gonads since now not only did they have to compete with CCP on price because PLEX could get you a lot of isk relatively cheaply - but also on security. Transactions on the black market were agains the TOS, your credit card data was put at risk of fraud, you had no idea who you were giving money to, and there was the continuing cloud over you that at any time CCP could just ban your account or freeze/confiscate your assets if your ISK seller got busted. CCP offered a clean, conscience-free and above all secure way to move a heck of a lot of ISK into your virtual wallet by giving them cash from your real wallet. What could possibly go wrong?

PLEX also helped stimulate the EVE economy. While it's true that PLEX does not create ISK that didn't already exist, people don't buy PLEX with the intention of hoarding that ISK. They buy PLEX with the intention of SPENDING. Therefore what PLEX did is use real cash to move ISK out of ISK stockpiles and back into the economy. It also had a second effect - that of moving stockpiles of minerals and materials out of someone's hoard and into the manufacturing of items and ships - for their eventual destruction. Because while mineral stockpiles did and do exist - what use to the economy is a few trillion units of tritatium that changes owners once in a while? Ahh, but turn all that tritanium into ships and not only do you get content but you get empty stockpiles and the demand for more mining, more resource gathering, and even more opportunities for content. What a wonderful idea PLEX was! What could possibly go wrong?

Well here is what has gone wrong.
Inflation aside - and any veteran who has been around more than a few years will agree there is REAL ISK inflation, the price of PLEX in ISK only goes up apart from very brief fluctuations - PLEX is probably the greatest enemy CCP currently has. I'll tell you why.

PLEX has only two uses in the game - first as a store of value, and second as a source of game time. As a store of value it is the "gold bullion" of the EVE universe. You want to keep parity with your ISK then convert it all to PLEX, leave, come back in 3 years and sell all your PLEX for ISK again and you'll have exactly the same value more or less. Those 8 billion you put in today for 10 PLEX will get you hey I don't know - for argument's sake 26 billion in 3 years when you sell them at 2.6B apiece which is what their market price will probably be. Oh the price of everything will have gone up by almost 3, but your money will have been "safe" and you won't have lost any value. This isn't really a problem.

PLEX is very very useful to the veteran player - the guy who has been playing a long time, who has the right connections, or who has a gift for this game. He knows where to get ISK. He knows which complexes and which anomalies to run. His losses are minimal. In a matter of hours, he can make the money required to pay for a PLEX and sub his account for another month. In a week he can easily replace any losses in modules and ships he may have suffered over the previous month. Wonderful. CCP rewards its best players for their dedication to the game and their skill by providing them with a "free to play" game - yes yes it's not 'free', someone else paid for the PLEX in cash, etc. The point is that crusty nullsec player can sub all his accounts by playing for under a week without paying a dime of real cash.

On the other hand there are less efficient EVE players who - because of the region they choose to live in, the friends or enemies they have or haven't made, their lack of skill, their unwillingness to "grind" the right way for isk, for whatever reason - be it personality, role play, personal likes and dislikes, etc. These people have to pay monthly to CCP in the form of a subscription.

So what is wrong here? Nothing. But this is where it gets interesting.

The veteran player is bored with EVE. He's spent the days he had to spend grinding, and now he is completely at a loss with what to do next. Nullsec is boring. The complaints about the blue doughnut are real complaints. Politics is a PITA. Getting a fleet together for a non official op is usually a PITA. Finding someone to fight who is not TOO big to fight (because face it, we are ALL risk averse - everyone wants to win) and is willing to fight is next to impossible. The rest consists of ganks that barely last long enough for you to get a lock on the target before he's blown away by the rest of the fleet. It gets old real fast.

So what happens? In the name of "content creation" and "lolz", groups of veteran, experienced players take off to other regions of the game to stomp all over weaker players. The high sec miner. Freighters carrying "too much loot" through high sec. Or nowadays just any freighter whether it has anything in it or not, ostensibly "for the tearz". Har har har! What fun!

Except - what is happening here? Veteran players who can pay for their experience of the EVE universe through easily (for them) acquired ISK are stomping on the play of newer or less dedicated players who pay their sub through cash.

What could possibly go wrong?

PLEX prices aren't going up with the general inflation rate, they're used as speculation stocks to drive prices up.

No I'm sorry, EVE is dying.. and at this rate there won't be a Jita left to redeem anyone's PLEX stockpile. It's probably better if PLEX is sold immediately while CCP is still limping along.


Edit: Linking to dubba dubba dot dot eve-offline.gov for declining users data. Number of users hit negative numbers recently, so there were -122 players logged into TQ on average last 6 months.

Best!

No! Worst!

Oh Im so confused

Could you explain to me the difference between a single account earning ISK for 1 PLEX vs. 60 accounts earning ISK for 60 PLEX? I didn't realize that adding an account has an exponential effect on ISK earned.

Please clarify.

Neither.

They are multiboxing with their forum alts

ok, first I'm going to do something so that those weak-minded fools know what the **** am I doing

/sarcasm ON

because everybody's so pure here.


and of course, sibyyl, it's 60 accounts in one guy! I mean, look at the ammount of isk being made there! it's insane! one people buying 60 plexes by himself, it must be some kind of cheat!


/sarcasm OFF


OH GODS I FELT MY BRAIN CELLS DYING THERE.

Now whole direction of development of EVE is to force players to buy more PLEXes instead of making game more interesting.

You should make an alt called "Lurpak", no?

Because that post is smooth as, well, Lurpak.