Jita Park Speakers Corner

If you're referring to the Ishkuone Watch Scorpion, then from a combat game balance perspective, it's in irrelevance. However fromt he perspective of a player who owns a Scorpion BPO and made his income selling Scorpions, it was in direct competion with his livelihood.

This illustrates the core problem with P2W cash shops: they undermine and drive out players from the supply chains that drive EVE's player economy, which directly reduces the amount of player interaction. They're parasitic on the game.

For instance, if you can buy gold ammo in the cash shop, what happens to the mission runner who makes his ISK by converting his LP into faction ammo?

If you can buy gold modules in the cash shop, what happens to the plexer who makes his ISK by running plexes for deadspace modules?

If you can buy gold boosters, then what happens to the gas miners?

And so on.

Another unmentioned solution to the problem here the already implemented ability to convert ISK to AURM. It goes like this:

ISK > Buy PLEX on Market > Convert PLEX to AURM.

Then the logical next step is to resell what you've purchased from the NEX shop hopefully at a profit, completing the cycle. The fact of the matter is, that we already have pay2win, and it's called faction ships/PLEX. The problem is that spending extra money on an item doesn't necessarily get you the win. The in game rich can afford to fly around in super decked out faction ships, and the people that have extra cash in real life can buy PLEX and do the same. If people really wanted to get rid of P2W, we wouldn't have PLEX.

I think the true heart of the matter is that people are jealous of people who have things that they don't. They automatically assume that just because people can put money into a game and get something for it, that it means they will become unstoppable and the peasantry is totally left in squalor. As a pirate, my mouth salivates at the idea of rich people running around thinking their money keeps them safe.

I know this is true from talking to plenty of people up in arms about alleged "gold ammo." When that internal memo was leaked, people didn't even bother to note the fact that it was simply a thought exercise. I had plenty of people screaming "HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THEY'RE DOING!" at me. I just laughed and told them I hoped they did, because it would be a vehicle for plenty of positive change in EVE, and indeed it would open up expansions to the game that maybe CCP doesn't want to put a budget to.

Also, I believe the idea of P2W cash shops is unfounded. A good reason why this is so is if you look at the number of faction ships lost in combat. No matter how costly a ship is, or how awesome the bonuses are, you simply cannot simply pay to win. Plenty of high end ships decked out in the best gear have been ganked like crying school girls.

Maybe I'm a little all over the place about this topic. I think I should develop a list of a whole load of cool things that none of us are going to get now that the player base has through a hissy fit over nothing.

This nicely illustrates what I was talking about when I said that the supply chains in the EVE economy could be driven out.

Pretty much the whole point of EVE is people doing things to supply each other with ships, modules and services in order to compete over the best ingame resources. Having a cash shop that "completes the cycle" on it's own directly conflicts with the game itself. Taken to it's logical conclusion, all we're left with is sterile PvP in space that nobody cares whether they own or not.

From your own argument, the only way to reduce (not eliminate) the damage caused is to hobble the cash shop by making it too expensive to use. But that's not what would happen, not in the end. I don't see a game publisher going to all the effort of creating a whole range of new game items in order to not sell them. Perhaps at first they'd have premium pricing in order to supply the collector market, but eventually they'd drop prices in order to boost volume - after all, the marginal cost of production for cash shop goods is zero.

As you yourself noted, people already fly expansive T3s and faction ships (which are currently provided by players and are the major export income of NPC 0.0 and W-space respectively), and PvPers will pay well for even a small advantage. If the cash shop ships had even a minor advantage, then, per game theory, they would get used, and they would drive out some or all of the ship classes. A player who is flying a cash-shopmobile isn't flying a player produced ship, therefore demand for player produced ships will fall with all the consequent damage to the supply chains and in game interaction I have laid out.

EVE already has suficient PCU, balance and economy problems without exacerbating the issues with a cash shop.

Finally, the argument that EVE players are already paying a premium subscription, and in very many cases multiple subs, and that we're entitled to have all the content in the game available to us for the price of that subscription isn't wholly unreasonable. The only reason that I myself am somewhat indifferent to the current NEx store is that the items sold are not only vanity but useless even for that (no one else can see them).

Incidentally, you do yourself no favours by dismissing the objections of others as a "hissy fit". You come across as rather emotionally involved yourself, to put it mildly, and an ad hominem is not a good argument. Whilst you have tried to argue that a cash shop wouldn't do as much damage as some people are saying, you haven't explained why you think it would be beneficial, when it's very obvious that you do.

If the cash-shopmobile is purely a vanity reskin, then the damage is limited to the final buyer spending his ISK on that instead of supporting player supply chains. That's some damage, but I suppose it's tolerable.

If it's anything more than a vanity reskin, then the damage immediately becomes much more significant: pirate faction ship BPCs are the primary export of NPC 0.0 (as well as being a major reward component of plexing). Oh and navy faction BPCs are a significant output of the LP stores, including the faction warfare LP stores.

I understand that calling an argument "ad hominem" has become fashionable these days, but criticizing the player base for being knee-jerk (which they were) and throwing a hissy fit (which they did), does not make the argument ad hominem. CCP obviously needs the money from the NEX shop, or else why would they bother creating it. If CCP wants to make a profit off this shop, then they need to start producing useful goods and reasonable prices. Here is a list of things I've come up with that could vastly improve the NEX Store:

Vanity Ship BPC's:

-Gives the BPC for a vanity ship that does nothing other than look cool.

-You can fly around in it.

New/Different Combat Ship BPC's:

-BPC for a new/different combat ship that falls in line with other ships in the game currently.

Faction/Security Status Improvement:

-Pay to buff up your security status or faction standing so that you'll be able to go into more secure areas.

-Ratting your standing off sucks and there is no player service that does this already.

-Could possibly get more expensive after repeated uses, not to mention how much improvement you want to give yourself.

Unallocated SP:

-I've been playing this game 6 years and I don't care if someone can buy their way into skill.

-I myself would probably use this service to fill gaps in my character sheet that I don't want to take the time out to train.

-Should probably cost about 1.5 X the price of a PLEX for 30 days of skill points.

-Possibly, you could disable regular training until the time you would have spent training has elapsed. That way, you can pay to have it now, but if you do, you won't be able to train for that amount of time (or you could purchase more SP).

-Imagine training a new titan pilot, would probably be pretty expensive, but that's the price you pay to get it now.

Furniture for Captain's Quarters:

-Self explanatory.

Ship Reskin Instruction Disk:

-You can make "drafts" of the reskin for free, to allow you to get it perfect. Only costs to actually create the "reskin disk," which is an item that can be applied to the ship itself.

-Cost dependant on the type of ship, a frigate would be dirt cheap, a titan or super carrier would be very costly.

-Great for alliance flag ships.

-"Reskin Disk" selling would make a great mini-profession for artists out there, as a great player-artist could draw big money for a really bad ass titan or supercap skin.

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All of these things except the ship BPC's are thing that are not currently in the game in any form, and further aren't developed by the players in any fashion. They could also be resold on the market just like a PLEX.

What about my suggestions as far as the non-indentical, non-similar items? Things like paying to have your security status/faction standing improved, as well as the selling of unallocated SP?

Some people make take offense to the unallocated SP, but as I've said, I've played the game for 6 years and I don't care if someone could rapidly skill up through the spending of real cash. The benefit to a 6 year player would be the ability to fill in missing skills that I never got around to training, without having to take time off the larger skills that I need to train. A newer player could put some money toward skilling up to becoming a good BC/BS pilot without having to wait 2-3 months. It would be great for them being able to get over the tough initial curve EVE is famous for. In an extreme (and expensive) case, a large alliance could quickly skill up a new titan/super carrier pilot.

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Lets do the math on what it could theoretically cost to take a blank character into a titan:

The formula:

( [ Training Time / 30 days ] * [ PLEX x 1.5 ] ) + ( [ ISK Required / 400m ISK ] * PLEX ) = Cost in Dollars

-PLEX represents the cost in dollars ($19.95) of 30 days of game time at the current PLEX price. The multiplier of 1.5 would be the cost of unallocated SP for this experiment.

-We will assume default attribute points (all 20 except Charisma which is 19) when calculating the number of SP generated in 30 days (the amount you could purchase for [PLEX x 1.5]).

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-Using the blank character tool in EVEMON with Gallente > Gallente > Activists:
-Character planned to train all Required + Support skills of Titan to 5
-For easier math I rounded up to the next whole day.

Training Time 1096d 18h 14m 27s
ISK required: 6,352,682,000 ISK

( [36.57] * [29.925] ) + ( [15.88] * 19.95 ) = COST

(1,094.36) + (316.81) = $1,411.17

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As you can see, even though it would be "easy", the cost of taking a blank character into a maxed Titan (with no pit stops along the way -- not even extra leadership skills) is quite significant. I should also point out that this is only the pilot, and does not take into account the cost of the ship itself.

I pretty much agree with what you have to say there Issler, but I wish you would address what I said in the post above about the Unallocated SP and Security Status/Faction standings increases. Both of those are not sold in any way currently, so I think both of those fit into the category of useful but not player driven items.

Further, I do like what you've said about being amiable to useful items coming from the NEX so long as there is a player economy contribution. I would like to see the possibilities of this.

You also hinted at the possible problem of even the clothing being sold at the NEX being an issue in the future after walking in stations finally comes to fruition. Surely, if you will be able to craft clothing in game, having clothing sold would hamper production somewhat. (Unless you could design unique clothing and sell that, in which case it would depend on who makes the better suit.) For that matter, what about crafting furniture?

Please refer to my above post regarding the Unallocated SP and theoretical costs associated with them. I think you'll find it interesting, plus, if nothing else were added to the NEX store, I would love to be able to buy Unallocated SP.

No, because said ISKs are earned in-game. The process of converting GTC to PLEX, does not create any object with any in-game effect.

While the Level 4 grinders don't really concern me, I'll concede you have a point on that one. The parts I mentioned about security status, "bribing CONCORD" if you will, still stands though. Also, the unallocated SP stands as well.

I was trying to be polite and just not point out you are being a little dense, but I guess there is no getting aournd it, you are clearly not able to see the way the world works. Any idiot can change RL $ to Eve wealth with no effort at all. They can take that "not earned by them in Eve" wealth and gain serious advantage in many ways. Very Very Very few folks in Eve can "charisma" a cap fleet out of miners. In fact I'm pretty sure I could aquire more stuff with my RL $ than you can with your "charm".

Yes, you are bound by in game resources but there are thousands of ways I can beat you with RL dollars being converted to ISKs. Sure, someone in Eve will get those isks for their efforts. What you are missing is I don't have to work in game for those isks to take advantage of them.

Let's take these simple examples, the first two I win with RL $ and don't even have to buy a GTC.

1. I pay for 10 accounts and you only have one. I can multibox a decent mining fleet that will out mine your single account every time. My RL beats your in game isk making.

2. Player "A" has an Acme PC with the lowest graphics adapter supported by Eve. It actually renders the display mechanically on a sheet of paper. Player "A" has "Connectmenot" for an ISP and had ping times in the minutes. Player "B" the fastest PC on the planet, graphics cards submersed in cryogenically frozen baby seal oil and is connected directly to the backbone of the internet. RL $s give "B" a huge advantge as he makes popping "A" his new hobby as "A" lags himself to distraction.

3. I want to crush a little corp so I use RL $ to buy enough isk to merc them out of existence.

4. I want a capital fleet in a hurry to defend my nul secpocket so I use RL $ to buy the skills and a super carrier for every member in my alliance with a pulse. Soon I own your not assisted with RL $ nul sec to add to my own. This has happened!

5. I want to own a market so I use RL $ to buy T2 BPOs, buy up all of some key raw material regardless of the price or to flood the market with stuff sold at a loss to drive out my competition. I don't need to make a profit because I can have all the isks I want with my sky high stacks in RL.

6. Two 30 member corporations go to war, corp A has someone willing to buy tens of billions of isks with RL $. Corp "B" is limited to whatever resources they had on hand and can earn during the war in Eve. Corp A gets to fly the best gear and use the best ammo and mods no matter what because they have a bottomless isk fountain and losses are replaced immediately. If the corps have anywhere similar skills "A" buys an "I WIN" button with RL $ and makes "B" its female slaver hound.

7. Two players start in Eve at exactly the same time. "FredinSpace" buys billions isk to start, immediatley maxes out implants, can have every skill he need exacly when he need them, has all the right ships and gear available instantly and maxes out his Eve learning experience. "DouginSpace" just earns as he goes, can't immediately get the learning bonus from the implants, buys skills and gear as he can. In 6 months which player is in the better postion assuming identical effort in building their character? Even more extreme example. Guy with RL $ converts them to isks and just buys a pretrained uber character. Sure, he'll bumble around for a while as he figures out Eve but he could put himself years ahead with his RL $.

Tell me how any of those isn't buying an advantage over someone else that either can't or isn't willing to spend RL $ to match me in my madness?

You can't simply earn enough in game fast enough to overcome the effect of RL $ being changed to ISK in game.

Eve has been --- RL $ FTW! for some time and always will be,

Issler