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Pay to win

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baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#801 - 2012-07-21 20:24:29 UTC
Mechael wrote:


Because you can make even more money even more quickly buy buying PLEX for real money. Isn't that obvious?


Where do you think all of that plex money goes? People buy a plex, spend it on ships/mods/ammo and then my wallet blinks. I have zero need to spend real money on isk because I have plenty of other people just throwing it at me.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#802 - 2012-07-21 20:26:32 UTC
EpicFailTroll wrote:


It's like you do it on purpose.

Team A and Team B are each made of 10 players
5 of team B players control 3 alts each moreover, 5 of those 10 supplementary alts are static scouts + offgrid booster, the other 5 are fighting ships requiring little micro (snipers for example, warp in lock all and change target when it's down)
Team A has no alts, but has a fleet of 30 FRIENDS ships coming to help...which will be spotted by the static alts

Guess who will do the most damage, then break off and dock?


You do know that you cant use more than one char per account at any one time right?
Skex Relbore
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#803 - 2012-07-21 20:26:51 UTC
Mechael wrote:


You missed something key, here. There PLEX item itself is worth ISK and is magicked into the game whenever someone pays CCP. That it is a liability until used is both irrelevant and a fallacy. Whether someone uses it or not, CCP still gets the money. There could be a million of them backed up in the EVE markets, and it wouldn't matter because they've all already been paid bought and paid for. In reality, CCP makes extra money from un-used PLEXes, because all that really means is that more subscription time has been purchased than has been applied. People are paying them for stuff that they're not even using. And it's still totally irrelevent to whether or not this is a pay to win mechanic, because even if PLEX were somehow not magicked into the game, the fact remains that you can still get an in-game thing with real money.


Incorrect, Because a plex doesn't represent anything that doesn't exist otherwise. It's just time. It's a representation of 30days of play.

Consider this, everyone chose to pay for their subscriptions with their own real life money, How much in game value would a plex have?

None because a plex can not be used (at least prior to the stupidity that was incarna) for anything other than a subscription. CCP isn't selling you 500 million isk they are selling you 30 days game time. It just so happens that that 30day game time has a value to people interested in playing this game. Particularly those who don't have sufficient real life funds to justify the expense.

It is no different than paying for an account for a friend who then shares the isk he makes with you in gratitude except that the arrangement is made with a stranger rather than a friend.

CCP isn't getting money they wouldn't get otherwise (aside from keeping customers who wouldn't be able to afford to play) that plex you see as magicked into the game is really just a subscription that's been transformed into a trade-able item. Think of it as a refund that you can redeem or trade to someone else.

So no it's not something that's been magicked into existence. its just something that's been repackaged into a more easily transportable form.
Mechael
Tribal Liberation Distribution and Retail
#804 - 2012-07-21 20:27:54 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Mechael wrote:


Because you can make even more money even more quickly buy buying PLEX for real money. Isn't that obvious?


Where do you think all of that plex money goes? People buy a plex, spend it on ships/mods/ammo and then my wallet blinks. I have zero need to spend real money on isk because I have plenty of other people just throwing it at me.


The fact remains that you could purchase something like 28 PLEX per day to bolster your income by an additional roughly 14 billion ISK per day (at current market prices.) That's in addition to whatever you're already making. If you don't see how that's buying an advantage, then you're beyond my help.

Whether or not you win the game matters not.  It's if you bought it.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#805 - 2012-07-21 20:28:40 UTC
EpicFailTroll wrote:
But you cannot realistically ask this of other people.
You can, and people do. They may also use alts, but that's just another option. It's not the only alternative.

Quote:
Also, the case studied is the https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1652093#post1652093 (which are a metagame, not ingame choice). A solo player as in, a player who wants to do stuff on his own, being at a disadvantage vs an alt-funding player.
That's his choice, not a lack of options. It's completely unrelated to alts.

Quote:
Your option 3 does not exist in this scenario
Yes it does. It always does. That's the thing: you've never been able to show an advantage where that third option does not exist — you've only been able to show scenarios where people choose not to make use of any kind of advantage.

Quote:
Given equal numbers of equally skilled players on each side, which side will win, the one using alts, or the one without?
The one that has the advantage will usually win. What the advantage is is completely arbitrary. Alts is not the issue here — it's an question of using and not using the advantages available to you. If one side chooses to use one set of advantages (e.g. alts) the other side can choose to use some other set of advantages (e.g. more people).
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#806 - 2012-07-21 20:30:09 UTC
Mechael wrote:
The fact remains that you could purchase something like 28 PLEX per day to bolster your income by an additional roughly 14 billion ISK per day (at current market prices.)
…and the fact remains that ISK can be made in numerous ways and that the time spend to afford those PLEXes is time spent not pulling every trick in the book to earn more ISK.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#807 - 2012-07-21 20:32:56 UTC
Mechael wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
Mechael wrote:


Because you can make even more money even more quickly buy buying PLEX for real money. Isn't that obvious?


Where do you think all of that plex money goes? People buy a plex, spend it on ships/mods/ammo and then my wallet blinks. I have zero need to spend real money on isk because I have plenty of other people just throwing it at me.


The fact remains that you could purchase something like 28 PLEX per day to bolster your income by an additional roughly 14 billion ISK per day (at current market prices.) That's in addition to whatever you're already making. If you don't see how that's buying an advantage, then you're beyond my help.


14billion isk spent on stuff I sell = 14 billion sent to people like me. The more people buy the happier and richer I get. Im also willing to bet that there are exactly zero people spending that much of their paycheck on an internet spaceship game. If they are then they spending more in a day than any alliance out there including goons.
EpicFailTroll
Doomheim
#808 - 2012-07-21 20:35:24 UTC  |  Edited by: EpicFailTroll
Tippia wrote:
EpicFailTroll wrote:
But you cannot realistically ask this of other people.
You can, and people do. They may also use alts, but that's just another option. It's not the only alternative.


But they don't. Static alts and tower sitting offgrid booster are pure afk characters, no input required. You cannot ask of a player controlling a single character to do this, because he won't. It's boring and afk play;

Unless he has alts for, of course.

Tippia wrote:
Quote:
Also, the case studied is the https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1652093#post1652093 (which are a metagame, not ingame choice). A solo player as in, a player who wants to do stuff on his own, being at a disadvantage vs an alt-funding player.
That's his choice, not a lack of options. It's completely unrelated to alts.

Since he's solo, has no access to ingame help, his only option is using alts. It's completely related to alts, because no npc entities related options exist
EpicFailTroll
Doomheim
#809 - 2012-07-21 20:35:39 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Quote:
Your option 3 does not exist in this scenario
Yes it does. It always does. That's the thing: you've never been able to show an advantage where that third option does not exist — you've only been able to show scenarios where people choose not to make use of any kind of advantage.


That option does not exist when the list of available reinforcements is depleted. Then for and equal numbers of equally skilled RL players on each side, which side will win, the one using alts, or the one without?


Tippia wrote:
Quote:
Given equal numbers of equally skilled players on each side, which side will win, the one using alts, or the one without?
The one that has the advantage will usually win. What the advantage is is completely arbitrary. Alts is not the issue here — it's an question of using and not using the advantages available to you. If one side chooses to use one set of advantages (e.g. alts) the other side can choose to use some other set of advantages (e.g. more people).


But the option to get more people is not always available. That option does not exist when the list of available reinforcements is depleted. Then for and equal numbers of equally skilled RL players on each side, which side will win, the one using alts, or the one without?
Mechael
Tribal Liberation Distribution and Retail
#810 - 2012-07-21 20:36:40 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Mechael wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
Mechael wrote:


Because you can make even more money even more quickly buy buying PLEX for real money. Isn't that obvious?


Where do you think all of that plex money goes? People buy a plex, spend it on ships/mods/ammo and then my wallet blinks. I have zero need to spend real money on isk because I have plenty of other people just throwing it at me.


The fact remains that you could purchase something like 28 PLEX per day to bolster your income by an additional roughly 14 billion ISK per day (at current market prices.) That's in addition to whatever you're already making. If you don't see how that's buying an advantage, then you're beyond my help.


14billion isk spent on stuff I sell = 14 billion sent to people like me. The more people buy the happier and richer I get. Im also willing to bet that there are exactly zero people spending that much of their paycheck on an internet spaceship game. If they are then they spending more in a day than any alliance out there including goons.


Degrees are irrelevant. Where the money goes is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you can spend real money to generate an advantage in game.

Whether or not you win the game matters not.  It's if you bought it.
EpicFailTroll
Doomheim
#811 - 2012-07-21 20:37:17 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Mechael wrote:
The fact remains that you could purchase something like 28 PLEX per day to bolster your income by an additional roughly 14 billion ISK per day (at current market prices.)
…and the fact remains that ISK can be made in numerous ways and that the time spend to afford those PLEXes is time spent not pulling every trick in the book to earn more ISK.


And that's because EvE is F2P
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#812 - 2012-07-21 20:38:02 UTC
EpicFailTroll wrote:
But they don't.
…and thus we arrive at option 4: get a better corp. Because yes, they do.

Quote:
Since he's solo
…by choice it's not a problem to begin with. He still has plenty of options available to him, but he chooses not to use them. So all you're doing is comparing someone who choses to make use of advantages and someone who doesn't. This tells us nothing about alts or about P2W. It's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Mechael
Tribal Liberation Distribution and Retail
#813 - 2012-07-21 20:38:12 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Mechael wrote:
The fact remains that you could purchase something like 28 PLEX per day to bolster your income by an additional roughly 14 billion ISK per day (at current market prices.)
…and the fact remains that ISK can be made in numerous ways and that the time spend to afford those PLEXes is time spent not pulling every trick in the book to earn more ISK.


Irrelevant.

Whether or not you win the game matters not.  It's if you bought it.
Skex Relbore
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#814 - 2012-07-21 20:39:26 UTC
EpicFailTroll wrote:
Skex Relbore wrote:

You have to include the alts in the numbers. If you have two teams one that has 8 actual players and 1 alt neurtal scout an 1 alt off grid booster compared to a team that has 10 actual players including an out of corp scout and an off grid booster (believe it or not people do fly T3 boosters in fleets as their mains) be edge would actually go to the team with 10 real players because non of them would be having to switch their attention between different accounts.

Tell me which do you really think is more effective, a Falcon played by someone who's having to also manage another ship in the fight a Falcon played by a player who's only paying attention to managing his jams?


It's like you do it on purpose, comparing an equal number of characters ingame, while I'm comparing an equal number of RL players.

Team A and Team B are each made of 10 players
5 of team B players control 3 alts each moreover, 5 of those 10 supplementary alts are static scouts + offgrid booster, the other 5 are fighting ships requiring little micro (snipers for example, warp in lock all and change target when it's down)
Team A has no alts, but has a fleet of 30 FRIENDS ships coming to help...which will be spotted by the static alts

Guess who will do the most damage, then break off and dock?


You are right I do assume that equal numbers and skills include all the assets that go into a fight. Not simply the number of warm bodies behind the controls.

Notice the only way you make your scenario work is if you don't assume equal numbers and skills.

If a team has 10 players and half of them are controlling 3 alts (have ever actually tried to control three different characters) that's a 25 member team so no it's not an even fight.

Would you consider it an even fight if all 25 members of your Team B were actually played by players?

Then why would you try to pretend it's an even fight when they are controlled by 10?

P.S. I do compliment you on picking an appropriate name.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#815 - 2012-07-21 20:39:47 UTC
EpicFailTroll wrote:
Tippia wrote:
EpicFailTroll wrote:
But you cannot realistically ask this of other people.
You can, and people do. They may also use alts, but that's just another option. It's not the only alternative.


But they don't. Static alts and tower sitting offgrid booster are pure afk characters, no input required. You cannot ask of a player controlling a single character to do this, because he won't.



Gonna point out that most of the fleets I have taken part in do indeed have people with these rolls.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#816 - 2012-07-21 20:40:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Mechael wrote:
Irrelevant.
Nope. It's what keeps PLEX from being P2W: the simple, unquestionable, irreproachable fact that PLEX does not provide you with anything you cannot get your hands on through other means. No amount of payment is required.

Since paying doesn't give you any kind of special advantage, it's not P2W.
Mechael
Tribal Liberation Distribution and Retail
#817 - 2012-07-21 20:42:01 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Mechael wrote:
Irrelevant.
Nope. It's what keeps PLEX from being P2W: the simple, unquestionable, irreproachable fact that PLEX does not provide you with anything you cannot get your hands on through other means. No amount of payment is required.

Since paying doesn't give you any kind of special advantage, it's not P2W.


Payment is never required. You don't have to choose to pay to win, even in a golden ammo scenario. But you can choose to pay to win. EVE provides that choice just as much as the next P2W game.

Whether or not you win the game matters not.  It's if you bought it.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#818 - 2012-07-21 20:42:02 UTC
Mechael wrote:

Degrees are irrelevant. Where the money goes is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you can spend real money to generate an advantage in game.


Have yet to see this advantage.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#819 - 2012-07-21 20:42:59 UTC
Mechael wrote:
Payment is never required.
Dingdingdingding!

Thus, no P2W.
Mechael
Tribal Liberation Distribution and Retail
#820 - 2012-07-21 20:44:36 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Mechael wrote:

Degrees are irrelevant. Where the money goes is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you can spend real money to generate an advantage in game.


Have yet to see this advantage.


Then you're beyond my help. It's been pointed out as clearly, obviously, and succinctly as is possible. Anyone can spend real life money to tip the balance of the game in their favor via PLEX, via Alts, which are both inarguabley advantageous in that the provide you with the means to do stuff. Just like any other resource. You get a thing, in the game, for real money.

Whether or not you win the game matters not.  It's if you bought it.