EVE General Discussion

No, my normal subscription gives me access to EVE Online and all the goodness of the game.

NEX and MT gives me access to fluffy crap that I can use as decoration.

I don't want my subscription increased for fluffy crap.

Caldari ships don't need paint jobs to do what they're designed to do.

Micro transactions retract from the sandbox experience, the game (and economy) should be as player driven as possible. The less "outside" involvement the better.

That was very complicated to achieve ... what exactly? What is wrong with buying for ISK?
And if you really really want to spend €€ you can always buy a PLEX and sell it.

The problem you're missing is that everything that is bought with AUR is bypassing EVEs player driven economy that is, every item bought from NEX will remove (current or potential) gameplay from every one that mines, researches, produces, trades or hauls in EVE. That in turn removes gameplay from everybody that interact with any of those, including miners and mission runners that want to sell their ore, loot and LP rewards.

TL;DR: Everything bought with AUR is killing EVE

Then why are you talking about Aurum? Nothing you can buy with Aurum counts as a micro transaction.

PLEX, on the other hand, represents the micro transaction currency that EVE has had for years: ISK. You can buy a pool of ISK with which to buy ammo (a few thousand rounds for a matter of cents), weapons (T2 large turrets for a dozen cents) and ships (Dominix for a few dollars).

Now to the original post, complaining about the Noble Exchange: yes, it puts a dividing line between the "haves" and the "have nots" or in EVE's case, the "incredibly space rich" and the "not space rich". The Noble Exchange is a luxury goods store: just like Gucci, Versace or any number of richer stores where you can actually go and buy thousand dollar jeans (or hundred-thousand dollar jeans) for no other reason than you have nothing better to spend the money on. A €43B speed boat with a hull made of gold? Yup, there's at least one of those in real life. $100,000 jeans decorated with diamonds that are functionally no better than the $70 Levi Strauss jeans you're currently wearing? Yup, you could have those if you wanted them.

The whole point of the Noble Exchange is to provide luxury virtual items to the few capsuleers who are immensely space rich. The point is to drive a wedge between the 1-percent and everyone else. The monocle-wearers trolling the forums for the last few months have had the right idea. The naives complaining about the lack of affordable options in the Noble Exchange have had the wrong idea.

Apart from the role of Aurum as a PLEX sink, the Aurum driven item store was an experiment by CCP in a market where they felt that the future of gaming was Free-to-Play with in-game Pay-to-Win purchases.

I would suggest that further discussion would benefit from separation of the key concepts of Micro Transactions, Virtual Items and Pay-to-Win.

As an example of a possible future of free-to-play: imagine EVE where having a subscription only impacted your ability to use skills and ships currently marked as "Not trainable on trial accounts." Thus PLEX would unlock activities you don't normally have access to: anything involving battleships, T2 ships, T3 ships, R&D, etc. Thus we already have a structure in place to support free-to-play with in-game pay-to-win (are T3 ships Pay to Win when free players are flying T1 cruisers?)

As an example of a possible future of Pay-to-Win: see previous discussion about gold ammo.

As an example of micro transactions: see GTC & PLEX & existing Market.

As an example of virtual items: a monocle which is quite clearly visible on a pilot's portrait, and marks that person as stupidly rich (because only a stupid, rich person would buy one) and thus a target for your anger and frustration due to your inability to make ISK and your desperate clinging to principles and morals as if they have any meaning in the cold, harsh universe of EVE Online.


It astounds me that in a game which boasts about having an economy so complex that the publisher has to hire an economist to tell them what's happening, the publisher then turns around and says, "we have to explore alternatives to subscriptions in a MMO ecosystem which is increasingly turning to free-to-play."

We already have free to play, we already have pay to win, we already have micro transactions.

In my opinion, the only poorly implemented facets of the Noble Exchange are its ubiquitous nature, the indestructible items, and the side-stepping of the player-driven economy. The Noble Exchange should be an NPC corp with its own LP store, fuelled by Aurum in place of/in addition to LP. The Noble Exchange's stations should be few and far between: one or two per empire, for example. Put them in low sec for the lulz (heck, make the Noble Exchange an Outpost upgrade). And having the NeX items as indestructible? Pure foolishness. How can one truly demonstrate their obscene space fortune if their monocle doesn't need to be replaced?

And those people who think the NeX is evil because they just don't like it? Maybe you should emigrate to that popular fantasy role playing game?