EVE Information Portal

Overall I really like the idea.

As someone who buys things from the NES the triple currency is a major pain in the ass and will be glad to see it condensed into just two currencies.

My only real comments are:

1) Please dear god make 1 month be 1000 plex not 500. Having a base of 1000 just makes the maths simple and everyones lives easier in terms of doing conversions on the fly. The cynic in me says your intention is to make this harder on purpose so that people are less aware of how much they are actually spending. I do pray you will go ahead with the solution that is easiest and best for your players not the bottom line.


2) The removal of amounts of Aurum less than 1000 is just wrong. I appreciate the logic behind it and the desire not to destabilise the PLEX market but the current implementation is the wrong way to do it. Some of those AURUM amounts may be the remainders from peoples transactions which they paid for themselves , i.e. not just holiday gift amounts, which you are essentially robbing from them in return. This is more frustrating when you consider you have priced your AURUM store deliberately such that transactions are never multiples of the amounts of AURUM you can buy in order to get just that little bit more from each player/transaction.

Overall I am indifferent about the special safety for PLEX. I don't have access to CCP data, but if the claims that PLEX loss drives away players are true then I am all for have special safety measures for PLEX.

This is just step one to introducing additional close states. Calling it now. Beta for 50 PLEX a month anyone? Delta for 150?


Also, not redeeming amounts of aurum less than 1000 is just blatantly stealing from people. Just convert all the aurum and let the market sort it out.

I just want to know why you think that we are told "hey guys we're going to inject a shitload of plex into the game when aurum converts" would ever equate to me wanting to go buy enough plex to jump the market up by 15%.

I don't have a problem with the concept. The PLEX killmails will still exist, but they may be smaller; ISK can still be made by selling PLEX; I saw nothing that would change the ability to continue a billing cycle to pay for a permanent Omega clone.

The only issue I see is fairly minor and easy to fix. The 'work in progress' image in the blog includes two icons that really need to be changed - the ISK to PLEX icon and the PLEX to ISK icon. Neither one means anything without the text below to explain it. The Omega, character resculpt, and NEX store icons all make perfect sense, so those could be left as is. The double green arrows for the first two icons could be replaced with icons that show [an arrow pointing from a PLEX to the Z glyph for ISK] for converting PLEX to ISK and vice versa. You could even remove the text and go pure icon if you'd like, and the function of each button would still be clear.

Ok, having read all the messages on this board to date, and listened to Seagull spout her stuff, I have a few comments of my own.

First off is the matter of about 3 cents per nu-plex, which of course, will come out at 5 cents when purchased in small lots, which translates to a 66% boost for CCP. I have no trouble with this, as CCP does need to actually make money after all is said and done. But be warned, as micro transactions come for a premium folks!

As much as I object, to CCP sweeping all the Aurum less than 1K's worth to nothing, because I too paid for these, they're definitely within their legal rights under the EULA changes they made a year plus back, where they declared we have "No Interest" in anything in the game. It's play at your own risk, folks, period, no exchange, no refund.

As I've consistently predicted, CCP's trying to make it's buck off of CHURN, which is all those Alpha accounts, rather than focus on retaining and rewarding their long term, regularly PAYING, account holders. Rather than be creative (hard work, actually) and adding things for which we'd gladly pay (Like Stargates and New Territory which could only be initially reached through holes) they're spinning the Parameter/Value dials downward to accommodate the newbies they incorrectly hope will sustain them instead.

Skins HAVE been a money maker, from both newbies and we longer term accounts as well. They are a good implementation for making money, but what CCP really needs to understand is that they'd make MORE money by adding hyper-expensive units like Stargates. CCP can make it's money, the same way Second Life and many others do, which is from the rental fees of player held properties. Currently the proper drain is Fuel Blocks, and Stargates would require ten or more times the monthly amounts of Fuel Blocks as do Citadels or POSes.

Player retention is primarily CAUSED by we longer term account holders, who protect and encourage the newbies, during the initial difficult phases. I've 'saved' several newbies from rage quitting this week alone, by being supportive and upholding them as they slowly break through the "Barriers to Entry" (the business term for this, and apparently not a concept players understand or have chosen to use). We need their support to survive, and help assure they can do so, by supporting them in turn, which we obviously do better than CCP's customer support. And every time CCP cuts US off at the knees, they shoot themselves in the head!

The only benefits we older accounts get from this change, is being able to fractionally support newbies who've only earned a portion of their monthly PLEX, rather than having to toss out for a whole one.

My summary is rather than monetize the minor difference between 0-1000 Aurum or Fractional Plex, CCP should monetize the difference between what could earned from privately controlled access to more systems, with the gap between what they could earn, and what they'd cost monthly in Fuel Blocks. I used to spend thousands of dollars a year, supporting my Corps and Alliance, but if CCP wants ME to open up MY FAUCETS again, they have to give me a reason to do so, and I say to them that "fractionating PLEX isn't going to do it, kiddies!"

This would have by far been the better and more logical decision. But it seems Marketing dude X thought up some convoluted thing at the meeting...

I dont understand why you dont use Arum as your granular currency ?

It is already in a cross character account linked wallet, it already has in game items (tokens) and its already used as the currency for non-game time pilots services.

Its already understood by your player base, it already has all your price points for skins and whatnot, because its more granular then what you are proposing with your plex changes.

Just drop plex instead and sell everything for AUR.

Might get some flak for this, but to be honest I don't really see this as a good thing.

I know, I'm an Alpha, and no one really wants to hear anything that we have to say, but the thing is this: this may be very bad for the game's economy as a whole.

If Aurum goes away, and these micro-plex units take its place, then two things will most likely go on:

1: micro-plex pays for more than just subscription time. This makes it inherently more versatile, and thus will most likely be more expensive than people think.

2: It will require many units of micro-plex to pay for a month of Omega time. If CCP sells packs of these things for less than 500 units per pack, it will require multiple pack purchases in order to have enough for one month of game time. This will also drive the price up as it will require more packages purchased to satisfy demand.

If the price of plexing one's account goes up beyond what people are willing to pay in ISK, then Alphas and Omegas who buy plex to extend their Omega time, who do "plexing", may simply stop playing if they are either unwilling or unable to buy subscription time with real life money.

If CCP plans on continuing the game for years into the future, they would need to focus on player retention, and making a method of paying for your account, plexing, non-viable is not going to help with that.


Also, and this is just my personal thoughts on the matter, I had been planning to try to do plexing myself as a means of going Omega since I don't have the disposable income to pay the monthly cost of a subscription with real life cash. This new bit of news is rather discouraging to me, as an Alpha clone player, and makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to play as an Omega for a prolonged period of time at this rate. I know I might be mocked for saying this, but that's the case; this is discouraging news to me, and I imagine it might be for other Alphas and even some Omegas who do plexing to pay for their own Omega time.

Make this a hot-bar window item on the left like Market or the Character Sheet, not part of the inventory window system. The small amount of game time that this is going to be used it should not clutter up the inventory system (we know how well people like messing with the inventory system).

I'm not exactly against this but I do have a few concerns. It seems like you're trying to do a few things with this change, make plex and aurum simpler and easier to understand for new players, while also making plex more accessible. I think this is a good idea and an opportunity to fix a few things, but I see a few problems with the current plan.

1. "Pilots License Extension" doesn't make sense anymore after the addition of alpha clones because they can fly around as much as they want for free. If anything PLEX should be changed to Aurum, which can then be used to buy SKINs, apparel, clone re-sculptures, and something named along the lines of "Omega Clone Ticket" to make the terminology simple and easy to understand. (Get rid of the Multiple Character Training item) Imagine for example, the sentence "You have to use 500 Pilots License Extensions to get 1 month of Omega Clone Training" I think most new players and even us non-new players are just like "...wat." Now add to that "You use Pilots License Extensions to buy clothes, or skill extractors, or ship SKINs." Again, wat.

2. My other concern is the effect this will have on market, currently PLEX is the top of the market (as I understand it) meaning the goal of most traders is to accumulate enough ISK that they can play a substantial role in the PLEX market. While I like the idea of making this market accessible earlier on, and effectively making Skill Injectors the new top of the market as far as Price/Volume ratio goes, I'm worried this will make the PLEX market feel more like buying ammo or something. Where people are undercutting the price into oblivion because there's so many people on market, I don't think we would see people putting up orders of 500 very often and actually getting them sold except for when someone buys up the market. Then for the consumer you're getting half of what you need at one price, 1/6th at another price, and the rest at even another price. This would make it hard to keep track of how much you're spending, especially for SP farmers. Plus the price would be inflated by those buying it for other reasons than using it for game time/SP. These two effects might offset each other, I'm not really sure, but I think the ISK to SP ratio would definitely get more turbulent.
Also, just pointing out another issue with passive income balance, but one that I think you're already aware of. If people were able to buy smaller amounts of game time than 30 days, this would unbalance PI as people could just make a million alpha PI clones and PLEX them for like a day or week to bring up all their PI materials and sell it.

3. This is more just a comment, I do like the idea of making PLEX or whatever it will be called safer. Why? Because the same idiots that would lose that PLEX trying to move it and then quit game would instead lose the money to a scam (like I did) or by buying a ship and getting blown up A.K.A. content.