EVE General Discussion

So principled hypocrisy...Okay. I can respect that. But it still doesn't change the fact that the PLEX ship sailed a long time ago and it's not coming back - primarily because most players are fine with it. I don't see the inherent evil that you insist it represents, but I absolutely see the advantages in terms of (younger) player retention. And CCP makes a little money along the way. And apparently so do you. When it's a win-win-win all around, I have trouble seeing how that adds up to a losing strategy.

I get that you don't like it because...reasons. But, so what? You're still here, so you obviously don't care about it THAT much. So why should CCP?

You dont have to read things actually. You can save a lot of time that you could spend sleeping or making out in a grass.

I told them to put pachinko machines inside stations and bring WIS, am I terrible? But they would get a lot of cash, and you would get something TOTALLY AMAZING, randomly.

Indeed. Character trading is straight-up RMT. It is exchanging in-game resources and power for cash albeit in a sanctioned way. It is why I didn't get all the uproar over P2W and "making the game less harsh" that went on last year when Skill Injectors were introduced. It is the exact same thing for crying out loud, and has been in the game for years and years. I think the loudest moaning game from players who trained and traded characters basically out of the game, in order to skim some in-game resources for themselves at no risk. All CCP did was find a way to cut out these greedy middle-men and make the RMT market more efficient (while probably increasing their real-world currency take per unit SP traded). But the fundamental mechanic has been there forever.

Same with the OP's complaint about the purpose of PLEX. Back when game codes were originally traded the sole purpose of the exchange was to trade in-game power for real-world resources. CCP, nor anyone else pretended otherwise. I wasn't around, but I believe when PLEX was first introduced its only purpose was the same - to allow players to exchange real-world game time for in-game resources. There were no other purposes. They eventually added some account related ones, and after the unification with Aurum, it inherited a whole set of additional uses to buy (largely vanity) in-game items via micro-transaction, but it is sort of missing the point to say that PLEX was not always intended to allow legal RMT between the players, or that CCP was trying to hide that fact.

As was said, there is no point in whining about that now. You are about a decade late if you can't handle a game with blatant and sanctioned RMT. Personally, I think for the type of game Eve is, trading SP is perfectly fine and fits with the free market theme of the game. I think Eve would be a more authentic game without any RMT, but I get the realities of a persistent MMO and realize that RMT of the illicit sort would still go on even if CCP didn't bring it into the open.

What is annoying is how in your face CCP is making the micro-transaction thing, which becomes insulting at some point when you are paying a monthly subscription to supposedly play the game. As long as the things they are selling amount to optional vanity items and taxes on RMT the integrity of the game will stay intact (well, as intact as it has been for years), but at some point that is going to turn off the regular paying customers who will just go somewhere else. One of the main attraction of a subscription is I don't have to deal with constant, and often deceitful, attempts at nickle-and-diming by the developer and while I can just ignore it like I have all along, it is tiring, and will get more tiring the more they increasingly wave it in my face.

Oh I think we have come to a point where it is perfectly fine to whine about it. Actually we have come to that point a long time ago.

PLEX started as a legit way to RMT ISK to battle ISK sellers with CCP getting the profit instead of some other guy. This was always totally ok in my books since it was the lesser evil and almost completely eradicated the ISK spamers.

In the recent years CCP iterated on it in a massive way by first adding micro-transactions which I always thought was completely over the top for a subscription MMO which costs 15$ per month and then starting to adding non-vanity items, despite the promise to never do so, to the store. And now they basically turned PLEX into space gold while at the same time they created a magic item hangar which transcends characters and does not drop stuff.

I don't think those developments are in any way healthy for the game, For CCPs wallets perhaps, but I would say they managed to survive for over 10 years before they started to turning EVE into a store front with ads to purchase more stuff everywhere which in my opinion is heavily nagging on the immersion.

If they would stop right now, maybe I could still have hopes. I would still despise the micro-transactions and the space gold, but to be honest I don't believe for a second they are finished yet. They are quite clever iterating on it in a slow pace, while being able to argue at any point that the new thing is basically just a small change and everything you can do now you could do before in some way. I have absolutely no illusions that they are done yet. It is pretty obvious this will continue, and in my opinion this destroys the game I like bit for bit.

I used to pay 3 chars out of my wallet, now it is just 1, since the game lost value in my eyes and I am hardly playing anymore, watching from afar as they turn a perfectly fine space game where I was ok with paying 45 bucks a month into a store front. In my opinion I can get a lot more value for those 30$ somewhere else where I get all the content and not more an more locked away behind more and more paywalls on top of the 15$ monthly one.

But I am worried, exactly because this updates page is so bare. All those additional monetization efforts came out of the blue almost completely implemented.

There are basically 3 possibilities here why it is so empty:
1) It is another step with even more monetization, therefor secrecy.
2) Fewer teams work on EVE and therefor only balancing and small features make it to the game, so the page is accurate.
3) There is a really big expansion in the works and they don't want to spoil the surprise.

Now I would be really really surprised in a very positive way and channel those 30 bucks back into EVE if it was number 3. However, there is no real good reason at the moment to think that. It is far more likely it is 1 or 2.

As for the more money CCP makes with EVE, don't think for a second this will in any way influence how much resources they spend on it. CCP is a company and has more projects than EVE. Their newest thing is the whole VR crap which in my opinion is just another obvious dead end. I mean they have only one successful game and now they gut it for money to fuel development in a market which is just incredibly small and still at a high risk of never taking off.

I share all your concerns. I was attempting to be sardonic there.

The big warning flag for me was when mining platforms, the only thing of significance on the updates page for the last half of 2016 got unceremoniously delayed a whole year, and replaced with nothing but a vague reference to a mysterious Empire expansion at Fanfest. That could mean they have been working in complete silence on some amazing new content that will completely revitalize the PvE in the game, or it could mean they basically stopped investment in the game, aside from some token maintenance and effort towards what Seagull promised, and switched most of the remaining resources to monetizing the game via micro transaction. I suspect you are right though and it is the latter meaning there is only moderate, and glacial iteration ahead for the game and, likely, continued decline because of it.

We shall see in the winter if there really is some meat on the promised Empire expansion, or if it is just a permanent implementation of the events they have been running with some of this slightly-better AI thrown in. And then one can all make a choice of whether to continue sending money to CCP every month for the product they have made if one has stuck around until then.

yeah I know pve and pvp pilots alike that just make up for losses buying plex.

had a ceo I know that's been buying plex to get injectors and rorqs + some other ships and have lost them wonderfully, buys more plex to make up for the losses

I know PVP pilots that have 0 reason to do any pve for isk now because when they need isk for new ships they just buy more plex so they can stay on their gates more

Isn't it any different in any other game? Is it really possible somewhere to simply pay and get others killed without using your stuff?

In other games you pay and get items that give you an advantage. I suppose having ISK does convey some advantage, but not in terms of items--i.e. you are not using an item I cannot have except by opening my RL wallet.