EVE General Discussion

At time of post Plex prices remind me of an African Country's currency collapsing. Eve is well known for tears. So are Hyenas. Kinda fitting.

Create a thread when you start seeing hyperinflation.

I know right. I was about to type stuff like: You dont know what that star is. Plenty of threads like, why a new one etc.

Turns out its even worse....

bc market can be manipulated...

Thereby making the entire solar system worthless, just as highsec was always meant to be. WOOHOO!!!

Well since plex is the only truly static commodity.... (has a fixed RL price, or at least quasi fixed) I'd say a 20-30% increase in price over the last couple of months is some impressive inflation.

The other items out of the micro-trasaction store are showing similar behavior as well. I just cashed in my 3500 Aurium I got when the store went up for 900 mil.

That doesn't quite qualify as "hyper" but it does mean that isk is devaluing rapidly.

PLEX prices always ramp up before Christmas - if nothing else it's driven by the anticipation of the collectables which may be available to active accounts during that period.
In truth however they're significantly lower than I had expected them to be this year - I hadn't anticipated the input broadcasting change which slashed demand drastically as soon as it was announced.

PLEX only provides an indication of the value of ingame currency in relation to real-world currencies. You're better off looking at Ishtars (for example) and their general price history to track inflation...

i was mainly just referencing that people like to post "the sky is falling, look at plex" threads every time it changes from the last time they looked.

All MMO money is in a constant state of collapse. This is pretty interesting, and not lost on modern schools of economics. However, many features of MMOs cause them to function dynamically similarly to real economics. The main feature here is inflation - the idea that the more currency you print (not backed by any material commodity such as gold, silver or pine needles - fiat currency in other words; printed by declaration alone) the less it's worth. The currency follows a supply and demand function.

In MMOs game currency is manufactured and introduced into the game each time a player "earns" it. If you didn't "earn" ISK in EVE most players would feel funny about that, as they're accustomed to ingame currency as a mark of achievement. This isn't just compensation for effort. This is an accepted point acquisition method. It's hand in hand with "leveling."

So, ingame currency is continuously introduced into the MMO economy at a rate tied to playing activity which is almost continual, and with a concerted effort to increase the amount doing the earning through drives to add to the playerbase. For each ISK introduced into the game, but not taken out, the value of ISK drops.

How does one take currency out of the game? Buying things from vendors is usually the major method for this. A method in EVE is also office rental (which is a sizeable chunk of change), or paying for war declarations, NPC corps taxation on its "members", etc. Any ISK paid to the "program" and not another player.

The catch is, the money has to be removed at the same rate it's introduced to prevent the currency from losing value. Obviously, players wouldn't tolerate a system such as this as it would make massing of wealth rather time-consuming and difficult. Using ingame currency for a rewards system, but taking away the award as soon as it's received wouldn't be met very happily.

Add this to an "economy" such as EVE's where a major part of gear acquisition is from other players, who themselves have to set prices the "market will bear" and you'll see a direct reaction that affects the entire play structure. What the market will bear - plus, who's going to go to all the trouble and expense to manufacture ships (for instance), then sell them at a loss just to keep the price stable? Nobody, naturally.

A good metric to use would be an item the ownership of which marks a player's significant advancement in the game - in EVE perhaps the battlecruiser would be a good example. How long would one expect to play EVE until able to purchase that first battlecruiser? If it took you four months to train and acquire the money for it, would that be "too long"? Or, what if it took eight months? How would that affect the game's desirability to new "customers" or players?

Interesting subject. ISK faucets. ISK sinks. Even? Not even close.

A lot of stuff is actually enormously cheaper. Look at t3s. Or pirate battleships..... Machs are selling for 570m now, compared to 850m the end of last year, and 1400m the end of the year before that. Nightmares, Bhaals and Vindis have fallen a similar amount.

Or look at a lot of deadspace modules, many have plummeted in price. For example, an x-type kinetic shield hardener is down from 140m a year ago to 60m now (and some others are silly cheap, eg a-type explosive shield for 10m). C-type invuls are down from 400m to 250m.

Of course, this doesn't apply everywhere, but I'm certainly having to remake a lot of fits because the price of some mods has collapsed so much.