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Splitting PLEX up

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Crimson Draufgange
The Seven Shadows
Scotch And Tea.
#1 - 2015-08-25 21:37:08 UTC
Over the years, the price of PLEX has been rising, and rising, and rising. Traders and people who buy PLEX with real cash to sell for ISK love this. The rising prices of PLEX make these kind of people happy, which is great. On the other hand, you have a large group of players that play the game by PLEXing their account. The rising prices of PLEX hurt these players. These players are earning the same amount of ISK they were a year ago, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. The price of PLEX is rising in such a way that it makes it hard for "PLEXing" players to keep going. Their in-game income can't keep up with the rising price of PLEX. Most of you would say "HTFU. It only takes a few extra hours of farming." Those few extra hours of farming are hours that many players don't have due to real life responsibilities, such as raising children, working a job, attending school, etc. Since these players can't afford to spend a few extra hours farming ISK, they end up going inactive, quiting the game, unsubbing, etc. A player base that leaves the game harms the game.

Sooner or later, PLEX will need to change. With the introduction to more NES items, the price of PLEX will continue to skyrocket (traders rejoice). As time goes by, PLEX continues to take on many new roles and can be used for many more things. As it is now, PLEX is currently used for:

Account time: One PLEX is equal to 30 days of game time which can be added to your account by using the PLEX directly from your in-game inventory.
Multiple character training: Activate 30 days of passive skill gain on additional characters on your account with PLEX.
Character transfer: Transferring characters between two accounts can be paid for with PLEX.
Character re-sculpt: Customize and recreate your character’s facial appearance.
Convert to AURUM: PLEX can be exchanged for AURUM, the currency used in the New Eden Store where unique fashion accessories and cosmetic ship customizations are sold.

What I'm proposing is to break these services up. Many of these services don't need to be tied to PLEX. To be more specific, I propose this:

- Keep account time tied to PLEX.
- Keep character transferring tied to PLEX.
- Remove Multiple character training, character re-sculpts, & aurum conversion from PLEX. These removed items would, instead, be available to purchase with real cash from CCP, just like PLEX is now. Aurum tokens, multiple character training certificates, & character re-sculpt certificates could be items bought with real money from CCP and can be traded in-game for ISK, just like PLEX.

Why? These changes would bring the price of PLEX back down to viable and reasonable costs (makes the quality of life much easier for a large number of players). In terms of income for CCP, this could actually be good for them. Allow me to give several examples as to why this could be.

Example one:
I'm a customer that is interested in buying items off the NES store. Under the current structure, to buy items off the NES store, I would need to buy a PLEX and convert that PLEX to aurum (iirc, you get ~4k). Let's say I want to buy a few ship skins and clothing items for a total of 1.2k aurum. This means I have another 2.8k aurum sitting in my wallet, doing nothing. I may never even use that aurum. Although the aurum is still there in my wallet, I spent $20 on items that, if you were to convert the aurum amount spent into real life currency, only added up to maybe $5-6. Sure, I could take that extra aurum, buy some items and sell them on the market for ISK, but there should be a much more effective way to spend money.

Under the new structure, instead of buying a PLEX from CCP to convert into aurum, I could buy an aurum token. There could be aurum token options for 100 aur, 500 aur, 1k aur, 1.5k aur, 2k aur, etc. Now, I could buy 2 100 aur tokens and 1 1k aur token to buy the things I want off the NES store and have nothing left over. I spent less real life cash to buy the items I wanted off the NES store. If I had to buy a PLEX to get the aurum, I know I would have leftover aurum just sitting in my wallet. This could be a reason as to why I don't really want to buy a PLEX for aurum, because I know I'll be wasting a certain amount of cash.

Having more items like aurum tokens available for purchase by CCP also opens up more markets in-game, which open up more trade opportunities.

NOTE: If CCP was to do all this, the real life prices would be adjusted accordingly. PLEX could cost a few dollars less than it does now. This isn't necessarily bad for CCP because there would be aurum tokens , multiple character training certificates, & character re-sculpt certificates they can sell for real cash, all of which would be cheaper than current (real money) PLEX prices.

So, before you guys start flaming, raging, bashing, etc. this idea, let's hear your great idea on how to make PLEX cheaper, more affordable, and more viable option for those players that use it to keep their account subscribed. If things don't change and everything keeps going the way it has been, 1-5 years from now, all the average joe EVE players will have left due to the fact that they can't keep up with in-game PLEX prices. This leaves EVE filled only with the elite and filthy rich players that don't have as many people to play with. EVE needs its middle class players, including the ones that PLEX their accounts. EVE will only die if it loses its player base, and as PLEX prices keep rising, more players leave the game. This needs to change, ASAP.

My Velator is overpowered.

"I use my hairgel to tackle my targets because it has a long lasting firm hold." - Me.
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2015-08-25 21:57:27 UTC
Crimson Draufgange wrote:
So, before you guys start flaming, raging, bashing, etc. this idea, let's hear your great idea on how to make PLEX cheaper, more affordable, and more viable option for those players that use it to keep their account subscribed.

Well, the best way to make PLEX more available is to get more people to buy them for cash. The best way to do that is to make their value per dollar higher.

So, the best way to make PLEX more affordable is to raise their ISK price.
Tiddle Jr
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2015-08-25 22:16:33 UTC
How do you think CCP is going to survive without constant demand for "golden ammo"?
Not talking about some colletor packs cause those are peanuts.
There are a lot of similar threads about, starting from "remove the damn thing" and "PLEX is cheap plz stop whinning".


"The message is that there are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know" - CCP
Zan Shiro
Doomheim
#4 - 2015-08-25 22:46:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Zan Shiro
if the plex is too high...pay the the sub.


If the sub is too high a cost with rl money....hate to be cold but that is a sign that things in RL need to be focused more on changing a situation where there isn't $15 extra at the end of the month. I use my usual example of giving up overpriced starbucks (or like it) coffee often. Lets change that out.

Here is what I do for lunch....every week day at work. I eat chicken and salad. Cost of stuff that goes into this is $10 if that per buy. One "batch" of this stuff lasts 2-3 days. so my lunch is around $3 ish a day. Average eat out lunch is an easy $7-8.

Want to be nitpicky can make it more throwing in gas money to drive to get the lunch, the unseen cost of going out to eat lol. This little trick saves me a few $'s right there alone. And gets me a healthier lunch to boot. Mixed with exercise it has also helped me lose some weight even.




The days of plex for around 300 mil ish are gone, lets move on. I miss them, but have accepted this is what happens in a player run economy. Want the old prices back ccp is going to have to do a massive roll back. As lots of things got us here.

PI
Incursions
0.0 changes (dominion sov stuff like Ihubs upgrades to order high grade CA's like pizza)
BP changes
incarna start of wis and the clothes store
list goes on and on


all the above....made the plex speculation we have now.
Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#5 - 2015-08-25 23:15:38 UTC
OP?

Log into your account management screen. you can already buy AUR directly, I'm not too sure about the others.

Can't you buy tokens for resculpts and MCT with AUR too? No need to use plex for them if you don't want to.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2015-08-25 23:21:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
You need a better understanding of macroeconomics before you are ready to make judgements about how something like PLEX affects the playerbase as a whole. The price is controlled by players. I can think of two main possible reasons the price may rise:
1.) the amount of ISK in circulation per player is increasing
2.) purchasing PLEX with ISK is becoming more popular

Most likely both of these are true to some degree, and I can say the first is most definitely true. PLEX cost has been rising steadily since it came out, because players are becoming richer and richer with insufficient ISK sinks to outweigh the ISK faucets. The rate of increase went up a bit with the release of Incursion.

If you want to keep PLEXing your account, you've got to figure out where that ISK is coming from and learn to get your hands on it. It's just as available to you as it is to everyone else. My suggestion is get into highsec incursions if you want a reliable source of income that will save time. You're probably already doing PI and research agents, if not then start them. If you start up moon mining in nullsec, you can combine that with datacores and PI to easily PLEX your account passively. Also perhaps PLEX is the key word here, running 'plexes in the right areas seems to be one of the highest sources of income in the game and can be done solo. You'll make more in high class W-systems, but that requires you be part of a tight-knit group with experience running those things.

And no matter how everything else goes, there's always one final option: the more ISK people have, the more you can take away from them. You can sell other goods for steadily increasing prices, and you can steal these goods from other players by destroying and looting their ships.



As for your main point about splitting up PLEX, I couldn't find it in the main post but I'm assuming you mean to allow players the possibility of adding less than a month subscription. I support the idea but I think CCP wants to maintain the minimum +5 euro per PLEX purchase unit in order to thwart account recycling as a market exploit. Perhaps the small PLEX units would not be usable to make the initial subscription but could extend the account partway. I'm in favor of that. Another thing you can do is get a free extension (2 days IIRC) which gives you time to liquidate assets or farm incursions and collect yourself a PLEX, or perhaps just activate one you already own.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Crimson Draufgange
The Seven Shadows
Scotch And Tea.
#7 - 2015-08-26 04:50:15 UTC
I have two accounts and I pay the sub fee with real money. I personally don't have an issue with it. I'm just worried about the player base that does have to worry about PLEX prices. I've lost one to many corp mates thanks to the rising price of PLEX. As a CEO, that's the last thing you want to lose, your members. No members, nobody to play the game with.

My Velator is overpowered.

"I use my hairgel to tackle my targets because it has a long lasting firm hold." - Me.
Tremain Oldfield
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2015-08-26 05:31:54 UTC
Yeh I agree with removing conversions but I would like to se ccp bring in a item which u can use to transfer characters and remove bye orders for plex. Is plex prices too high unfortunately no especial with how unbalanced the isk/risk factor is in high sec
HandelsPharmi
Pharmi on CharBazaar
#9 - 2015-08-26 05:46:00 UTC
We should make a sticky thread about PLEX prices and forbid this never ending story...

Plex prices are so high... subscribe your account.
Or earn more ISK in the same time as you used to "work" in the game before.

I am suffering from this prices as well... I have around 40 accounts at the moment...
Rivr Luzade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#10 - 2015-08-26 06:03:25 UTC
PLEX prices can rise to 2B for all I care. I want to see people cry, despair and riot with pitchforks and torches. Twisted

The best solution to your problem: Use proper subscription to play EVE and make the game more enjoyable for you.

UI Improvement Collective

My ridicule, heavy criticism and general pale outlook about your or CCP's ideas is nothing but an encouragement to prove me wrong. Give it a try.
Lu Ziffer
Balanced Unity
Goonswarm Federation
#11 - 2015-08-26 06:29:15 UTC
The PLEX prize is pushed by players with to much ISK and there are players who have stockpiles of PLEX some of them have 1000-10000.

PLEX is trading commodity and if there is ISK that needs to be invested then PLEX is the way to go. PLEX is the market with biggest volume and the best longterm potential.

Just limit the amount of PLEX per account to 100 and a lot of PLEX willl get into the market.
Tabyll Altol
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2015-08-26 07:53:43 UTC
Crimson Draufgange wrote:
Over the years, the price of PLEX has been rising, and rising, and rising. Traders and people who buy PLEX with real cash to sell for ISK love this. The rising prices of PLEX make these kind of people happy, which is great. On the other hand, you have a large group of players that play the game by PLEXing their account. The rising prices of PLEX hurt these players. These players are earning the same amount of ISK they were a year ago, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. The price of PLEX is rising in such a way that it makes it hard for "PLEXing" players to keep going. Their in-game income can't keep up with the rising price of PLEX. Most of you would say "HTFU. It only takes a few extra hours of farming." Those few extra hours of farming are hours that many players don't have due to real life responsibilities, such as raising children, working a job, attending school, etc. Since these players can't afford to spend a few extra hours farming ISK, they end up going inactive, quiting the game, unsubbing, etc. A player base that leaves the game harms the game.

Sooner or later, PLEX will need to change. With the introduction to more NES items, the price of PLEX will continue to skyrocket (traders rejoice). As time goes by, PLEX continues to take on many new roles and can be used for many more things. As it is now, PLEX is currently used for:

Account time: One PLEX is equal to 30 days of game time which can be added to your account by using the PLEX directly from your in-game inventory.
Multiple character training: Activate 30 days of passive skill gain on additional characters on your account with PLEX.
Character transfer: Transferring characters between two accounts can be paid for with PLEX.
Character re-sculpt: Customize and recreate your character’s facial appearance.
Convert to AURUM: PLEX can be exchanged for AURUM, the currency used in the New Eden Store where unique fashion accessories and cosmetic ship customizations are sold.

What I'm proposing is to break these services up. Many of these services don't need to be tied to PLEX. To be more specific, I propose this:

- Keep account time tied to PLEX.
- Keep character transferring tied to PLEX.
- Remove Multiple character training, character re-sculpts, & aurum conversion from PLEX. These removed items would, instead, be available to purchase with real cash from CCP, just like PLEX is now. Aurum tokens, multiple character training certificates, & character re-sculpt certificates could be items bought with real money from CCP and can be traded in-game for ISK, just like PLEX.

Why? These changes would bring the price of PLEX back down to viable and reasonable costs (makes the quality of life much easier for a large number of players). In terms of income for CCP, this could actually be good for them. Allow me to give several examples as to why this could be.

Example one:
I'm a customer that is interested in buying items off the NES store. Under the current structure, to buy items off the NES store, I would need to buy a PLEX and convert that PLEX to aurum (iirc, you get ~4k). Let's say I want to buy a few ship skins and clothing items for a total of 1.2k aurum. This means I have another 2.8k aurum sitting in my wallet, doing nothing. I may never even use that aurum. Although the aurum is still there in my wallet, I spent $20 on items that, if you were to convert the aurum amount spent into real life currency, only added up to maybe $5-6. Sure, I could take that extra aurum, buy some items and sell them on the market for ISK, but there should be a much more effective way to spend money.

Under the new structure, instead of buying a PLEX from CCP to convert into aurum, I could buy an aurum token. There could be aurum token options for 100 aur, 500 aur, 1k aur, 1.5k aur, 2k aur, etc. Now, I could buy 2 100 aur tokens and 1 1k aur token to buy the things I want off the NES store and have nothing left over. I spent less real life cash to buy the items I wanted off the NES store. If I had to buy a PLEX to get the aurum, I know I would have leftover aurum just sitting in my wallet. This could be a reason as to why I don't really want to buy a PLEX for aurum, because I know I'll be wasting a certain amount of cash.

Having more items like aurum tokens available for purchase by CCP also opens up more markets in-game, which open up more trade opportunities.

NOTE: If CCP was to do all this, the real life prices would be adjusted accordingly. PLEX could cost a few dollars less than it does now. This isn't necessarily bad for CCP because there would be aurum tokens , multiple character training certificates, & character re-sculpt certificates they can sell for real cash, all of which would be cheaper than current (real money) PLEX prices.

So, before you guys start flaming, raging, bashing, etc. this idea, let's hear your great idea on how to make PLEX cheaper, more affordable, and more viable option for those players that use it to keep their account subscribed. If things don't change and everything keeps going the way it has been, 1-5 years from now, all the average joe EVE players will have left due to the fact that they can't keep up with in-game PLEX prices. This leaves EVE filled only with the elite and filthy rich players that don't have as many people to play with. EVE needs its middle class players, including the ones that PLEX their accounts. EVE will only die if it loses its player base, and as PLEX prices keep rising, more players leave the game. This needs to change, ASAP.


The PLEX will rise because more players want them and fewer player offer them and to be honest i think 1 b is low.

-1
knowsitall
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#13 - 2015-08-26 10:27:44 UTC  |  Edited by: knowsitall
Crimson Draufgange wrote:
I have two accounts and I pay the sub fee with real money. I personally don't have an issue with it. I'm just worried about the player base that does have to worry about PLEX prices. I've lost one to many corp mates thanks to the rising price of PLEX. As a CEO, that's the last thing you want to lose, your members. No members, nobody to play the game with.



Then as a CEO you need to find a way to help your members make more ISK so they can afford PLEX. The answer is to make your members richer, not make PLEX cheaper.


KIA
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#14 - 2015-08-26 12:26:54 UTC
knowsitall wrote:
Crimson Draufgange wrote:
I have two accounts and I pay the sub fee with real money. I personally don't have an issue with it. I'm just worried about the player base that does have to worry about PLEX prices. I've lost one to many corp mates thanks to the rising price of PLEX. As a CEO, that's the last thing you want to lose, your members. No members, nobody to play the game with.



Then as a CEO you need to find a way to help your members make more ISK so they can afford PLEX. The answer is to make your members richer, not make PLEX cheaper.


KIA


They are too busy making us form up to grind ISK.

If people can't pay with PLEX because grinding ISK is too hard, they need to get their CC out and pay for sub directly.

If they cost too much, then I guess they have more pressing RL priority for their $ than a subscription based MMO and this is probably a good thing for them.
CCP Terminus
C C P
C C P Alliance
#15 - 2015-08-26 14:11:33 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Terminus
So a few comments on the state of PLEX, Aurum, and services:


  1. Aurum can be purchased directly, and always gives you more Aurum/Dollar than buying a PLEX and converting that to Aurum.
  2. Aurum packages start at around $5 meaning there are options for people looking to make ISK or supplement their normal ISK income by reselling items from the NES.
  3. We do want to remove extraneous services from PLEX and have done so already. Many of the services you listed (multi-character training and character resculpt) are sold in the NES for Aurum, at a rate that is favourable to buy them for Aurum rather than PLEX. Many of these items have also been separated out in the in-game market, meaning you can purchase these services directly from the market for ISK.
  4. Globally, there is always more ISK coming in to the game than going out, which means over time inflation will occur, especially in "gold-standard" items such as PLEX which will never really lose their value (i.e they don't get rebalanced or nerfed).
  5. When prices do skyrocket for short periods of time, we monitor the subscription rate carefully to see if we need to intervene with a sale of some sort, or let the fluctuation smooth itself out.

@CCP_Terminus // Game Designer // Team Size Matters
Xackattack Avianson
Hold The Pod
Not Purple Shoot It.
#16 - 2015-08-26 14:23:42 UTC
CCP Terminus wrote:
So a few comments on the state of PLEX, Aurum, and services:


  1. Aurum can be purchased directly, and always gives you more Aurum/Dollar than buying a PLEX and converting that to Aurum.
  2. Aurum packages start at around $5 meaning there are options for people looking to make ISK or supplement their normal ISK income by reselling items from the NES.
  3. We do want to remove extraneous services from PLEX and have done so already. Many of the services you listed (multi-character training and character resculpt) are sold in the NES for Aurum, at a rate that is favourable to buy them for Aurum rather than PLEX. Many of these items have also been separated out in the in-game market, meaning you can purchase these services directly from the market for ISK.
  4. Globally, there is always more ISK coming in to the game than going out, which means over time inflation will occur, especially in "gold-standard" items such as PLEX which will never really lose their value (i.e they don't get rebalanced or nerfed).
  5. When prices do skyrocket for short periods of time, we monitor the subscription rate carefully to see if we need to intervene with a sale of some sort, or let the fluctuation smooth itself out.


4. Why not implement more isk sinks into the game to help combat inflation and drive up the value of 1 ISK? With the removal of clone upgrades to protect SP, we have lost an ISK sink, wouldn't it make sense to replace that with a new isk sink?

5. Sneaky and Clever, i'm glad you're watching out for us.

All in all though, i wouldn't mind removal of converting PLEX to Aurum and adding in an Aurum token.
Kagura Nikon
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#17 - 2015-08-26 14:34:44 UTC
Aerasia wrote:
Crimson Draufgange wrote:
So, before you guys start flaming, raging, bashing, etc. this idea, let's hear your great idea on how to make PLEX cheaper, more affordable, and more viable option for those players that use it to keep their account subscribed.

Well, the best way to make PLEX more available is to get more people to buy them for cash. The best way to do that is to make their value per dollar higher.

So, the best way to make PLEX more affordable is to raise their ISK price.



People fail to realize real world economics hit much harder than in game things.

The blockade of MOST credit cards operators from russia is the MAJOR factor why the PLEX demand skyrocketed.

So go ask Obama and Merkel for a fix, because only they can do it.

"If brute force does not solve your problem....  then you are  surely not using enough!"
CCP Terminus
C C P
C C P Alliance
#18 - 2015-08-26 14:52:26 UTC
Xackattack Avianson wrote:


4. Why not implement more isk sinks into the game to help combat inflation and drive up the value of 1 ISK? With the removal of clone upgrades to protect SP, we have lost an ISK sink, wouldn't it make sense to replace that with a new isk sink?

5. Sneaky and Clever, i'm glad you're watching out for us.

All in all though, i wouldn't mind removal of converting PLEX to Aurum and adding in an Aurum token.


We can implement ISK sinks and slow the rise, but it will always go up. I mean it's not like you can go in to debt in EVE (at least through game mechanics), and the vast majority of people are ISK positive.

@CCP_Terminus // Game Designer // Team Size Matters
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#19 - 2015-08-26 15:08:27 UTC
Kagura Nikon wrote:
Aerasia wrote:
Crimson Draufgange wrote:
So, before you guys start flaming, raging, bashing, etc. this idea, let's hear your great idea on how to make PLEX cheaper, more affordable, and more viable option for those players that use it to keep their account subscribed.

Well, the best way to make PLEX more available is to get more people to buy them for cash. The best way to do that is to make their value per dollar higher.

So, the best way to make PLEX more affordable is to raise their ISK price.



People fail to realize real world economics hit much harder than in game things.

The blockade of MOST credit cards operators from russia is the MAJOR factor why the PLEX demand skyrocketed.

So go ask Obama and Merkel for a fix, because only they can do it.


I never though of that one. Thanks for bring it up.
Lu Ziffer
Balanced Unity
Goonswarm Federation
#20 - 2015-08-26 15:33:39 UTC
CCP Terminus wrote:

We can implement ISK sinks and slow the rise, but it will always go up. I mean it's not like you can go in to debt in EVE (at least through game mechanics), and the vast majority of people are ISK positive.

You could switch the economy to be more based in ressource trading instead of instant ISK.
Then you can manage the total ISK amount with ressource tradeorders.
There is no difference in paying ISK for a material or giving it for killing an npc in terms of ISK creation.
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