Market Discussions

...and probably even more so, nine months later.

Say it ain't so Bad Bobby! Where do you think they need to be to "fairly" priced? I'm assuming they are now more underpriced because more money has entered the game?


On a side note, a while back I ended up with a dozen or so PLEX for 830ish. Soon after the price dropped below and it looked like I bought high. Turns out, I was a shrewd businessman.

I disagree with that last part. PLEX should not be billions. Then you get into $20 being billions and easy to get ISK, more so anyways. So that would really screw the economy. Oh man, I need 10 billion, that's just $40. No big deal. I think current prices are right about where it should be.

It is already easy to get isk. You can play the game to make 1B easily or you can exchange a PLEX with someone who plays the game to get 1B easily.

The isk still gets made by someone playing the game, the isk still gets spent by someone playing the game and the PLEX subscription option allows more people to play the game. All of that gameplay is good for EVE and good for the economy.

If there is something wrong, it's with the balance of sinks and faucets. CCP need to use the new structures and new sov mechanics to soak up more isk from the system.

If you don't know how, you can learn.

If you are unwilling or unable to invest the time and effort required and still expect to be able to afford PLEX when so many other players are willing and able to put in that time and effort, then you are just expecting too much.


Yes. Everyone has the option of exchanging lots of time and effort for isk, through grinding whatever profession they choose. But if they choose a poorly paying profession they have to accept the inefficient conversion of time/effort to isk that comes with that.

You also have the option of investing some of your time, effort and isk in carrying out the research, planning and investment needed to enter a better paying profession and gain a more efficient conversion rate. It is generally the failure to do this that traps EVE players in wage slavery, where they spend more time grinding for isk than enjoying the game. It's a poor choice that so many people make.


If you are saying the market will become more saturated with PLEX, then I don't see that as a problem since the market would correct and PLEX prices would drop.

If you are saying the market will become more saturated with ISK, then no, because the ISK is just passing between players. It doesn't get created by the PLEX trade, only consumed by taxes. The market is already saturated with ISK and CCP needs to deal with that separately. It's not an issue with PLEX, but a separate issue that contributes to rising PLEX prices.


No one person gets to make that determination. Instead it takes all of us, pulling and pushing at the market, to decide what price it should be at. The fact that PLEX price has been trending upwards since it's introduction tells us a lot here.

I could personally cope with PLEX at 3B or so, more than that and I would have to look at further improving the efficiency of my isk making. I expect the point where the moderately established and moderately capable players cap out would be lower than that, but I'm only guessing.

CCP has provided us with so many options for making isk.

Each account can host three characters and each character can host:

305 market orders
11 manufacturing jobs
11 science jobs
21 personal contracts
60 corporation contracts (and even more contracts to corporation members)
6 command centers for PI
6 R&D agents for datacores

On top of that, you can run as many of the following as you can handle:

Moon mining POSes
Reaction POSes
Syphons on other peoples moon mining and reaction POSes
Customs offices
Forum posts that generate isk by various means (shops, services and scams)

All this before you consider fully active grinding with one character on the account doing PvE or whatever.

So with all that at your disposal, if you can't make bags of isk each month then you have to be doing something wrong. You have options to choose from regardless of whether you lack SP or isk. You just need to invest some time and effort in finding something that works within your limitations. If you can't afford that time and effort, minimal as it may be, then you can't really expect riches.

I don't doubt that I have some advantages over you.

I've been playing the game seriously and continuously since 2005, less so before that. I have lots of characters, SP, isk, assets and friends. It is my nature to seek out knowledge from wherever and whoever I can get it. I appear to be better than average at linking different pieces of knowledge together to come up with an effective plan.

On the flip side, I suffer from dyscalculia, so I have a hard time dealing with numbers, arithmetic and related things. I'm obsessive compulsive, so I routinely make sub-optimal decisions due to the need to have things neat, ordered, symmetrical and predictable. I live a fairly frugal existence in real life and could not justify the cost of EVE subscriptions if PLEX wasn't an option. I therefore have to accept the burden of PLEX cost regardless of how high it goes, because I have no real alternative.

So for me, as with everyone, the trick is in finding ways to make isk while working within my personal limitations.


But with all the forums, wikis, videos, streams, guides, channels, tools and amazingly knowledgeable and helpful people in the EVE community, that is more or less available to anyone.


Both can be lucrative, but work best if you have money and time to put in to them.

If I were in your position, I'd be looking at things that require only a little isk and time to set up and provide a semi-passive income thereafter. Time spent on things like that reward you for your entire EVE career (unless CCP nerfs them) and offer good isk/hour once all things are considered. But most importantly, these are not things you have to do instead of your regular carebearing, but can be done in addition to it.

Just chiming in to point out that some of the things you named (R&D and PI in particular) are passive in name only. Once you calculate the time you need to keep them running and derive the effective ISK/hr, you will be surprised to learn that they barely pay any better than something as simple as running missions (albeit with smaller opportunity cost).

It wasn't supposed to be a list of passive income streams, but a list of resources each character has available to generate isk.

I agree with you on R&D agents, as they are terrible now. If you haven't already got them going, I wouldn't bother setting them up. If you have got them going, cash them in as infrequently as you can to improve your effective isk/hour.

PI depends on how you do it. Factory planets with no extraction require little effort to maintain, you just need to visit the POCO regularly to feed in fresh inputs and take away your product. It's similar to running POS reactions. Whereas more mainstream PI is a bit of a grind, as you say.

Not surprised at all on why plex price went up.

The only thing that comes to mind is how people were angry at me ...last year... for speculating that plex price is gonna go up.

They were rambling they have many alts and they played eve online by buying plex in the market...not by subscription based because they can't afford to pay $9.99 / month. Can't imagine the electricity bill to pay for this. Must be more than $9.99 / month.

*shrugs* meh