EVE General Discussion

Only people who shouldn't be playing EVE complain about the price of PLEX.

bad idea. please don't mess with my main source of isk. thank you

I know it's an unpopular stance but I agree with the OP, although I'm not sure making Plex tradable once is the only possible solution. Plex aren't a purely ingame item the way that ships or mods are, and I think player speculation and profiteering needs to be decoupled from impacting subs. It's not about stopping the players who sell plex from profiting due to ingame inflation, it's more about minimising the ability of speculators to manipulate the market to a degree that it affects retention rates. If you don't care about retention rates in the slightest, don't bother reading the rest.

I've seen a lot of remarks that people who can't afford to play have their priorities wrong and should sort their lives out. It strikes me as a massively hypocritical attitude when on the same forum people encourage each other to "Broadcast for Reps" if they are feeling suicidal. Spend some time talking to players ingame and you'll find a % who are unemployed (made redundant or struggling due to their local economy), or students*, or suffering from a host of real life issues. They might be playing Eve as an outlet or as their main hobby. A lot have been suckered into running multiple accounts, which is not £10/$10 a month, so stop trotting that out. When they start seeing Plex prices spike it just adds to a spiral of misery they are already in. I find the attitude of "well, tough luck" from some of the forum shitbirds disgusting tbh in this context. You'd have to be a complete ******** to actually say this to someone ingame who is already down and is getting worked up over not having the time to grind to keep their accounts up. Fair enough, some people are whiners, but some are genuinely struggling. There's no counter argument when they threaten to quit and go play something cheaper that isn't such a massive timesink, and I personally resent seeing people I like unsub over this.

Something that might be more dynamic would be to set a timer on a Plex from the moment it is issued ingame (say 90 days). That way they can still be traded, but as the timer degrades it becomes more pressing to get them sold. Allowing a few greedy gits to affect so many is not healthy for the wider playerbase and needs to be curbed.

* Not talking about myself here, I stay subbed via passive ISK generation. But not everyone can be taught (or wants to learn) and if I was forced to PVE-grind to stay subbed, I'd probably be bawwing too.

I agree with part of this. Plex needs to be decoupled from everything except game time. It needs to be that you can ONLY use plex for game time, that's it. can't buy Iceland tickets, cant use it in the AT, can't use it to buy stuff from eve store, can't resculpt, JUST game time.

They have Aurum, this si what Aurum should be, you buy and sell tokens. they are used for all the extra crap. Plex is just for game time. This would reduce a lot of the demand for plex, cause Aurum to rise and people will shift to Aurum.

Wait.. then we would have Aurum whine threads... yea.. never mind lol

You'd be better off arguing that CCP should reduce the cash value to buy a PLEX. More PLEX on the market, less value. You're suggestion would do the opposite. They won't do that, of course. Bet they're making absolute bank off of PLEX's.

The in-game value of a PLEX is going to continue to rise as long as there is a demand. People that play the game for free by earning isk for PLEX are continuing to be able to afford them, even at their higher prices. Christ, I can remember when they were worth 200mill! There's only so much market manipulation that can be done here. It's the people that use and absorb the PLEX to add game-time that ultimately create the demand.

As far as people using their wealth to play the market and make loads of cash: Welcome to EvE Online! Anything that reduces the player-driven economy is just wrong!

I agree with the OP.

PLEX is the one single (out of how many thousands?) tradable item that is used as the only legitimate source of RMT.

It is a unique item in the game and should be treated as such with restrictions on it's use and specific rules governing how it can be used.

Not hatin'. Just sayin'.

Mr Epeen

Plex currently average a sales volume average of 4000 per day, or 120k per month.

Seeing as there is less than 350k active accounts left in Eve give or take a few dozen thousand, the idea that Plex is not traded several times before being consumed has to be a reality.

Judging on the principle that you buy plex to use, to hold or to sell, and if you sell one you are probably subbing your account as well for every one of the 120k sold her month if all were consumed each month then 240k accounts would be taken care of.

Now we don't have a clue what the numbers are for subscription types because Plex is the single most secretive item in the game, but we do know that 66% of Eve is not plexing, therefore someone is sitting on a ton of them (many people sitting on many tons).

Therefore Plex is only as worthwhile as the artificial demand can outstrip the supply. Wait until January and tell me how that is working out, we are already seeing 100 plex dump orders in Sinq and Lonetrek last night, it is only getting worse for holders coming soon.

Source please

PLEX exists to make CCP money.

They need people to buy PLEX with RL $ that helps to fuel the company.
What happens from there on the market you would think would not matter.

However, you need people to buy them and use them at a good rate to keep the turn over going.

The prices were getting to a point that people just drop the extra accounts and that drops demand and from there that goes back to the $ that CCP want and by now probably need. **

It was probably a bonus but now PLEX is probably counted as a monthly and annual income used for general expenditure and paying salaries.

** which is precisely what some players are banking on. There is a group with a core that believe they win the game when CCP has to shut it down. So, they are doing all they can to buy up PLEX, drive other players out, increase their own players with the profit, extra PLEX and ruin the game.