EVE General Discussion

I've been thinking a lot in the light of the recent CCP proposal. Yes, they may really lack subs and want money. They have a right to.
I have some friends that don't resub because PLEX prices went insane. They might come back.
I also know some friends that don't even start because of that. And some alts aren't created for the same reason. That is one thing.

Other thing. Mostly CCP introduce new stuff through aurum system. PLEX is tied to aur, so people (some of them) buy PLEX and turn it in. This increases demand for them, thus increasing price. CCP reasonably want more money so they introduce more and more stuff, and plex keeps going up all the time possibly because of that.

Another thing. Some of the people buying PLEX turn it to aur and sell as, say, SKINs. This removes it from market, thus decreasing supply. Surely this increases its price. I don't think this factore is heavy enough, though. I may be wrong, not havung any stats.

Yet another thing. For people that want to buy isk for $, PLEX isn't the best option. Maybe not even a good one.


So, thoughts are: if we untie PLEX from AUR system, it might stabilize. Just don't let it be turned into AUR any more.
Also, maybe (just maybe) it will help to decrease AUR price a little bit. 10-20% at most. Just to make PLEX a little more viable option. SKINs and clothes will still be bought, regardless. This way I expect to increase the supply of PLEXes on market.

Now are there flaws in my logic or should I actually poke someone from CSM or CCP themself (or try to at least) with this idea?

P. S. Please don't beat me for asking to increase AUR prices. That can be made to work in different ways, it's just a suggestion.

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Edit: I've forgot one more factor of PLEX prices indeed. And CCP's income through that. Back when I started to play, a Machariel (just a sample expensive thing people may waht to own) costed 750 million isk, and PLEX was only 300. Now, machariel is around 500, and plex is 1200. There's a lot less PLEX needed to buy anything you want, so that decreases the supply a lot. Maybe we need a lot more insanely expensive things or make existing things more rare.

P. S. so now those who actually buy PLEX to get stuff will be more against me as well...

I think we were having player numbers issue here. The fact that I'm posting on forums suggests that I'm holding a subscription and so am mostly ok with the price.

But we two (three, with the person that liked you) aren't alone in this world. I find the whole AUR thing disruptive to normal things' pace, so limiting PLEX to only being what it initially was (game time) and maybe way to pay for fanfest and similar tickets can do a little damage control.

I wouldn't care if CCP didn't try silly things again and again to bring more people in. I've suggested a possible way to do so, without disrupting gameplay and other stuff.

P. S. yes, I'm among those considering old EVE being better than current one. And it getting worse and worse with time (even thougs some features/changes are nice).

Here's a radical solution: Pay the sub.

Break the link between PLEX and Aurum.

"Declining number of player accounts is not caused by in game PLEX price. It is caused by a lot of things but not that."

If you want a TLDR just skip to the last paragraph.

Oh come on you can't really believe that can you? I mean at least you accept is as a possibility from the following statement, but can we please look at this from the point of view of CCP as a business rather than the obligatory posts about get a job? I mean is it really going to help CCP in anyway by telling people to go get a job? We live in a day and age where there are people who genuinely lack the disposable income to subscribe to EVE Online while working and even though this will be a small minority shouldn't we at least take it in to account? It might just be the case that they are subscribed to one game as I know many gamers who limit themselves to this or it can get out of hand, should CCP be turning them away? We also have to remember that even though EVE has a mature player base, there is a younger community of gamer among us, many I know that have parents which disapprove of a subscription based model, should CCP be forgetting about them? The fact is that PLEX does allow a small portion of the player base to continue playing the game they love and at a time when CCP is literally having to ask us to play EVE as CCP Seagull did in one of the video updates if I am not mistaken. In my opinion something has to be done in order to prevent losing more of this ever shrinking playerbase.

Now lets take some facts into account shall we? Now I'm a British scrub so I'm not sure if this is just for us, but... Plex cost more than a subscription. Now can we think about this from CCP's point of view? CCP would, I assume, rather someone bought a plex and it was used rather than someone subscribing to the game for a month and then hitting cancel as many players do now the reoccurring payment system has been introduced. So in fact, its more beneficial to CCP if these players don't get a job and then purchase a plex off the market, removing it from circulation and allowing for its position as cheapest in the market to be taken by another plex which will then be sold and so on and so forth.

Now the counter argument to that is, well under your (referring to my) logic we should continue to let the prices rise as this will mean more people will want to buy and subsequently sell plex, which is absolutely correct to a certain extent. But we have to take into account this ISK price as only if the price is viable to the masses will plex continue to sell on the same scale. You must admit that two years ago it was relatively easy to plex off mining, by maybe putting in 24 hours a month making purchasing ingame plex a very viable option. It also would mean that for people wanting to sell plex, they would have to purchase more in order to get them same ISK value today. Now this is almost imposible on the same time scale as in 24 hours you would be extremely lucky if you made 800 Million, let alone 1.2 Billion as I last checked plex was sitting at.

Now I could keep arguing with myself all evening and keep offering counterarguments, but to me having a lower price of plex ingame, would retain more of the playerbase and even bring some of our lost members back. I know its against the sandbox and EVE in general, however I think a cap on plex prices is something that seriously needs to be considered rather than disconnecting it from Aurum. Now I'm not talking something drastic, but I think that 1 Billion would be an interesting mark to at least discuss among the community, preferably with out the obligatory get a job comments as plex > subscription for CCP going of British figures (£15 > £10)

Then please make a constructive contribution to the discussion.

Then please make a constructive contribution to CCP by at least stating your opinions on the subject matter originally stated in the first post of the thread instead of focusing on the individuals that are moving for these proposals.

If you think plex prices are bad atm, just wait until that sp for isk comes into play, cause plex prices will skyrocket then.

This. PLEX stands for Pilot License Extension, yet it is used for buying SKINS, apparel, fanfest tickets, collectors edition, donations for charity, etc. In the future probably also for buying SP.

PLEX should be used for paying the subscription and nothing else. Active players is THE most important asset CCP has. CCP should not allow that useless cosmetic stuff and RL goods drive up the price of the most important item in the game.

might be too rad man or just subrad lol