EVE General Discussion

Therefore it's like most other threads in GD....

Though this one has much less trolling and more discussion of differing viewpoints.

And it will never end...

Circumventing a huge portion of the game with the use of real life cash is negative for the game... You don't need to have a means of funding yourself in game so long as you have rl cash you're willing to spend on isk. This is the issue and this is why this game is no longer a sandbox... You can take out of game assets and use them to gain an in game advantage.

Furthermore, ccp has stated many many many many many times that RMT was bad for the game and this is one of the "reasons" why they have taken more serious measures towards culling this "black market". CCP is doing exactly what they have determined is negative for the play of the game and hiding behind a clever guise known as PLEX.


If you played the game before and after the implementation of plex the change is obviously apparent.

Let me guess.....

A friend of yours has a ticket to a group you desperately want to see. All he wants for it is to play on your computer a couple of hours a day for a month. You'll refuse because it makes a negative impact on the concert you want to see. amiright?

The (arguably) negative effect is that the "ultimate science fiction simulator" is now much more heavily influenced by the real life bank accounts of the people interacting with the simulation. In a sense, this makes EVE much less pure as a simulator. The same is true of any real-world element that effects it, to varying extents. The question posed is how much do we want real-world elements to effect EVE? Obviously, as it is an interactive simulation, the influence of real people is acceptable. And since CCP does need money to keep improving EVE, some form of payment for influence is understandable. But where is the line drawn? Is it acceptable to pay real money for an account so that you can influence anything at all? Is it acceptable to pay real money for valuable in-game items, further increasing the real-world influence on EVE? Is it acceptable to include special real money only items, even furthering how much real-world influence there is on EVE? Is it acceptable to just pay a hefty sum in order to acquire the means to field a Titan? Many Titans? Where is that line drawn? At what point do we say, "Okay, this isn't at all what I want to see in EVE?"

For me, that line is drawn at paying for access to the game, and mostly because this is a required element if A) real people are meant to interact with EVE and B) CCP is to acquire the means to keep EVE running and keep improving it. Anything beyond that is unnecessarily bringing too much of the real-world into the world of EVE.

Then again, I realize that some people are just here to have fun with internet spaceships and don't give a rats ass about the simulation aspect of EVE. Not saying that's any of us here, but such people are playing EVE. To these people, there is obviously nothing negative about PLEX or Alts or anything of that nature. Different strokes for different folks. But when the game becomes something that a player is no longer interested in, they stop playing. Hopefully they do what they can to keep things from getting that far.

0/10

irrelevant comparison is irrelevant.

There is nothing stopping someone who acquires their ISK entirely through in game mechanics from buying or starting alts. If you are smart you can easily make enough isk to run multiple accounts without spending a dollar. What it comes down to is: does it make sense for you to work in game to acquire isk vs use cash made out of game to acquire the same isk. If I'm going full on industry mode I can easily make enough isk to run all three of my accounts no problem and fund my PvP needs. However, the time required to do "work" in game needed to accomplish that requires far more time than it takes to make enough money to just keep some of my subs going and use minimal industry to fund my ships or none at all and pay for everything.

Having alts and purchasing plex are not Pay to Win. Pay to win is buying that $5 invulnerability shield that you can only have if you paid the $5. If plex was directly convertable to Isk that was created out of thin air then I agree it would be Pay to Win, but the demand for plex by people who make enough in game currency to pay for their game time must be supplied by someone.

Do you consider the industrial titans who make billions of isk by setting up elaborate, well thought out operations who can buy alts on a whim or any ship because they want to Pay to Win? No, you probably don't. Many of the people crying in this thread are likely the ones without the ambition, mental capacity or desire to built a significant in game source of isk. The best industrialists I know spent months to years getting to where they are and they can now purchase whatever they please. Some of you could spend a year or two's worth of plex acquiring a few characters and needed pos modules, BPOs etc. to do the same thing and then start paying for plex with isk. You've basically invested two years of game time into one go which will then proceed to pay for 2 years of game time and then some without paying another dollar.

The fact is Eve isn't pay to win. It is pay to save time grinding something. You can pay all the $$$ you want for the best of everything but without the actual skill to use them (not skill points, I'm talking YOUR skill) you will fail every time. Give someone the best of everything and if they don't know how to use it they lose.

Because someone is too dense to read the whole thing: You can buy alts and then run them without paying a single dollar! EvE is not pay to win it is think to win/play to win/leverage advantages to win... IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOU! Stop crying that you can't make billions of isk a month intelligently playing the game or afford to spend an extra $15+ per month in subscriptions because you're too poor or cannot stomach paying that much more for a game. Take what you'd spend on your eve subscription in a year and try to secure a good in game source of isk to fund your needs... Regardless if you build it entirely in game or pay for the risky short cut, it all comes down to you.