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Plex price 3M?

Author
DiDDleR
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#41 - 2017-06-20 12:14:26 UTC
CCP should have stuck to their plans with the Carrier nerf - too many cry baby Carrier pilots threatened to unsub but they probably were PLEXing their accounts anyway...
Navik Askiras
Yautjas
#42 - 2017-06-20 12:22:28 UTC
Joan Maetsuycker wrote:
Why should CCP help you a new player that want to Plex his account for a free ride and not want to invest in a subscription,
there is alpha for you to play for free



The objective of play EVE is being Omega... Alpha is good, but not really fun, because you are super limited. As explained Sephiroth Angell somebody must have buy that PLEX from CCP to sell on the Market to the player that will use it. So... Where is your point?
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#43 - 2017-06-20 12:32:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Jenn aSide
Uthgaard wrote:
Ghost training and afk ratting. But mostly ghost training. Due to incursion farming and the rise in afk carrier ratting & VNI orbiting,
ISK faucets exceed ISK sinks, leading to inflation.


Sometimes there is a mistake so blantant in someone's post they accidentally reveal that they don't actually know what they are talking about. This is a case in point. You can't "afk" a carrier and haven't been able to since the introduction of Fighter Squadrons.

"AFKing" Drones ships (mostly vni's and ishtars) is bad, but only on the principle of "you should have to be at your keyboard to earn isk via combat PVE". When you could afk carriers and people were afking ishtars all over the place the money supply was fine.

FIGHTER SQUADRONs from carriers and supers are indeed the problem (before fighter squadrons, economy is fine, after fighter squadrons, disaster) and CCP chickened out on fixing that problem. But it helps to actually know something about the activity and methods people use BEFORE posting.
Francis Raven
GeoCorp.
The Initiative.
#44 - 2017-06-20 12:33:07 UTC
Would it not partly have to do with all the cosmetics converting from an AURUM cost to a nuPLEX cost? People who now want skins, clothing, etc... need Plex in order to purchase them. This in turn increases demand for it. I haven't looked at the volume changes as of late, but I bet you that is playing a role in this.

ExDominion | Nullsec Corporation | Website | Forums | Established Nov. 2015 |

Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#45 - 2017-06-20 12:35:08 UTC
DiDDleR wrote:
CCP should have stuck to their plans with the Carrier nerf - too many cry baby Carrier pilots threatened to unsub but they probably were PLEXing their accounts anyway...
'

There wasn't enough people using carriers and supers for ratting to raise that much of a fuss. The fuss came from people's aversion to the idea that a PVE situation could cause a ship to be changed in a way to makes it lose a lot of utility in PVP.

I'm very much in favor of fighter squadrons being nerfed into the ground and honestly don't care about the loss of PVP power, but it's important to know the real reason why people feel the way they do rather than pretending it's about something else.
Black Pedro
Mine.
#46 - 2017-06-20 13:16:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Black Pedro
While I do think the current high price is largely due to the ISK faucets being set on 'torrential' in recent months, there is also the worrisome fact that the sell volume has been incredibly low for the last week or so. The PLEX cupboard is bare and such a seller's market means prices are going to rise.

Whether this lack of PLEX on the market is due to less being sold (normal cyclical decreasing activity, people quitting over recent scandals) or just a run by speculators on the inventory we cannot tell from the data. The price of PLEX will be whatever the market decides so an increase in price isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if the rising price is due to lack of PLEX being bought from CCP and listed, that is a worrisome turn of events.

Far too many people rely on people selling them PLEX to fund their game time and that of their alts. If the 'weekend warriors' lose interest in the game, or PLEX climbs to the point they need to buy much less of them to fund their fun, many industrialists will find themselves unable to support their game play. Effectively no one will be willing to pay their game time for them to play the game in exchange for the fruits of their grinding/building and many accounts will start to go dark.

PLEX may be a luxury, but many players completely rely on that luxury to play the game as they do now. We can tell them to HTFU, lose their alts, or get out their credit card, but there will be severe and lasting consequences to the game if PLEX rises too high too fast. The only practical solution though I see is to increase interest in the game so people want to play the game (and buy PLEX to list on the market), something which seems difficult for CCP to manage.

Ah well, whatever happens it will be an interesting test case of how a virtual economy reacts to such shocks. Personally, I think there will be a tipping point where the complete market will unravel spectacularly, but it could just be a slow, and constant descent into stagnation as more and more players are squeezed out of the RMT market and leave or scale back what they do in the game.
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#47 - 2017-06-20 13:18:27 UTC
DiDDleR wrote:
CCP should have stuck to their plans with the Carrier nerf - too many cry baby Carrier pilots threatened to unsub but they probably were PLEXing their accounts anyway...


You have to remember what group is most organized, and motivated to maintain this new null-sec faucet . There are many RL examples where a tiny minority can dictate public policy via lobbying and contacts. Also look who controls the CSM. The majority of the player base, the casual player, (still true, though CCP's policies over the last few years have certainly changed the ratio) are currently completely unrepresented by any voice in the Eve community. Further, CCP has demonstrated over the years that any voice from the casual player base is at best, ignored, at worst, censored or banned.

So CCP implemented a nerf to a gifted ISK faucet, and that nerf, as you said, is not nearly enough.
Supercarrier players will now go from 260M ticks, to maybe 180 M ticks. Big deal.

Plex prices are up 29% in the past 3 months.
They are up 23% in the past 2 months.
And those numbers are irrelevant to CCP.

CCP loves the laissez faire, libertarian economy, and they really don't care what wealth redistribution is occurring ingame. And this is really what this is. Low sec, wh, and high sec ISK generation potential is flat, which has resulted in null sec's insatiable need for all of the economic pie continues to grow. And CCP is A-OK with this, for now.

CCP had record profits last year, due to a number of factors. One of those factors was the ability to monetize each account for a larger increase than the decrease in the subscription rate. Perhaps that trend will continue. I personally doubt it, as there is only so much blood in a stone. But I am sure CCP has other ideas on how to increase their income per player.

So bottom line, plexes can hit 4 million, or 5 million, and CCP will only pay lip service to "fixing" this. They won't get serious until they get tangible proof that their corporate income is being hurt by in-game Plex prices. And that may be months before they figure that out.

BTW, I converted virtually all my free cash into Plexes quite a few months ago, and think I have 16 or 18 left. So I plan on taking CCP to task over that time frame, or until other factors outside my control stop me. I am betting on those outside factors.
Matthias Ancaladron
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#48 - 2017-06-20 13:25:44 UTC
Plex needs a market cap of 2m.
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#49 - 2017-06-20 13:27:27 UTC
PLEX is not a luxury. It can't be. Any more than ISK is a luxury.

PLEX is a medium of exchange. More a symbol than an item. Like ISK is not an item. You see it in your wallet but you can do nothing tangible with it.

You can't fit PLEX to your ship. Or research them in a lab run. Or mine them out of rocks. They are not an item so can't be a luxury. Just another way to write ISK.

Mr Epeen Cool
Matthias Ancaladron
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#50 - 2017-06-20 13:27:50 UTC
Francis Raven wrote:
Would it not partly have to do with all the cosmetics converting from an AURUM cost to a nuPLEX cost? People who now want skins, clothing, etc... need Plex in order to purchase them. This in turn increases demand for it. I haven't looked at the volume changes as of late, but I bet you that is playing a role in this.


Almost no one buys stuff off the store.
Whether it cost aurum or plex doesn't matter.
Nana Skalski
Taisaanat Kotei
EDENCOM DEFENSIVE INITIATIVE
#51 - 2017-06-20 13:33:38 UTC
Keno Skir
#52 - 2017-06-20 13:40:43 UTC
Navik Askiras wrote:
Joan Maetsuycker wrote:
Why should CCP help you a new player that want to Plex his account for a free ride and not want to invest in a subscription,
there is alpha for you to play for free



The objective of play EVE is being Omega... Alpha is good, but not really fun, because you are super limited. As explained Sephiroth Angell somebody must have buy that PLEX from CCP to sell on the Market to the player that will use it. So... Where is your point?


He doesn't have a point, you are correct. In fact since a PLEX cost more (in real money from CCP) than a months subscription costs, CCP are actually financially better off if people pay their sub with ISK rather than cash.

The more you know..
Black Pedro
Mine.
#53 - 2017-06-20 13:52:37 UTC
Mr Epeen wrote:
PLEX is not a luxury. It can't be. Any more than ISK is a luxury.

PLEX is a medium of exchange. More a symbol than an item. Like ISK is not an item. You see it in your wallet but you can do nothing tangible with it.

You can't fit PLEX to your ship. Or research them in a lab run. Or mine them out of rocks. They are not an item so can't be a luxury. Just another way to write ISK.

Mr Epeen Cool
At least with oldPLEX, it was a luxury, at least the ability to purchase them from the market to pay for your game time. It was not needed for any in-game activity. It was purely used to mediate RMT between two players and you could play EVE without even knowing they existed and not have it impact on your game play. ISK is not a luxury as you could not play the game if you didn't know ISK existed.

Also, from the other side, you do not need to engage in RMT to play the game and buy power or resources from other players. That is also a luxury, one CCP added as a best solution to a problem rather than as a true feature to the the game.

Now though that PLEX is used to purchase other goods and services, perhaps you are more right. nuPLEX can be used for many more things than just to mediate the exchange of virtual assets for real-world cash of other players (or vice versa), including the storage of wealth or as a currency used to buy some items from CCP. It's still pretty optional from the core game, but there is much more utility than when GTC trading was sanctioned or when PLEX was first introduced.
Wanda Fayne
#54 - 2017-06-20 14:04:57 UTC
Nana Skalski wrote:
Post how much PLEX you have.

14500


0

"your comments just confirms this whole idea is totally pathetic" -Lan Wang-

  • - "hub humping station gamey neutral logi warspam wankery" -Ralph King-Griffin-
Navik Askiras
Yautjas
#55 - 2017-06-20 14:09:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Navik Askiras
I tried to explain a possible solution to control PLEX pirce market: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=522666
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#56 - 2017-06-20 14:18:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Jenn aSide
The definition of "luxury" as it pertains to plex is "something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary ". EVE Online in it's entirety is a luxury.

I'm glad prices are going up even though I'm a plex consumer not a seller. Because plex has been the cause of so much stupidity in EVE.

On the one hand you have the guys who pay EVE casually but started plexing because it was so cheap. So they would play EVE (usually PVPing and having a blast without a care in the world) all month and when they get the game time notification they would go and 'grind out a plex', turning one weekend a month into a 'space job'. The inevitable rise in the cost of plex makes their 'space job' harder, thus to the forums/reddit they go to complain instead of adjusting how they do things in game to make things easier on them (like setting aside a few minutes a few times a week over the course of a month to do things that make isk be it ratting or mining or setting up PI or some light market trading etc).

At the other end of the spectrum is the "unsustainable plex'd empire magnate" with 20+ accounts for whom even slight variations in plex prices causes them fits. It never ever occurs to people like that that having their enjoyment of the game become dependent on having $300 (U.S.) per month worth of EVE accounts they can't pay cash for if plex prices rise was a drastically stupid mistake to begin with.

Cheap plex made casual EVE players into addicts when plex for game time should have been only the province of time-rich dedicated players (that would then be exchanged with time-poor but cash rich players). Everytime we see one of these plex price anxiety posts, it's just a junkie going through withdrawls.
Coralas
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#57 - 2017-06-20 14:32:40 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
DiDDleR wrote:
CCP should have stuck to their plans with the Carrier nerf - too many cry baby Carrier pilots threatened to unsub but they probably were PLEXing their accounts anyway...


You have to remember what group is most organized, and motivated to maintain this new null-sec faucet . There are many RL examples where a tiny minority can dictate public policy via lobbying and contacts. Also look who controls the CSM. The majority of the player base, the casual player, (still true, though CCP's policies over the last few years have certainly changed the ratio) are currently completely unrepresented by any voice in the Eve community. Further, CCP has demonstrated over the years that any voice from the casual player base is at best, ignored, at worst, censored or banned.

So CCP implemented a nerf to a gifted ISK faucet, and that nerf, as you said, is not nearly enough.
Supercarrier players will now go from 260M ticks, to maybe 180 M ticks. Big deal.



You don't get 260m ticks all the time. Also we can't blame players for the addition of capital rats, which are intended to be killed by capitals and have capital scale bounties. We didn't do that, CCP did.

Quote:



Plex prices are up 29% in the past 3 months.
They are up 23% in the past 2 months.
And those numbers are irrelevant to CCP.

CCP loves the laissez faire, libertarian economy, and they really don't care what wealth redistribution is occurring ingame. And this is really what this is. Low sec, wh, and high sec ISK generation potential is flat, which has resulted in null sec's insatiable need for all of the economic pie continues to grow. And CCP is A-OK with this, for now.



Those numbers are relevant to CCP.

CCP has a problem with plex, in that if the value of plex goes too high, people start to need to only buy the equivalent of 1 old plex or less with real cash. ie the demand curve for plex is more complex than a classic S curve because the utility alters with ingame price.

Quote:


CCP had record profits last year, due to a number of factors. One of those factors was the ability to monetize each account for a larger increase than the decrease in the subscription rate. Perhaps that trend will continue. I personally doubt it, as there is only so much blood in a stone. But I am sure CCP has other ideas on how to increase their income per player.



They'll do all the things they always do, wait for eu winter when they get more value (more alphas and more subs) for campaigns, and then run a campaign.

Quote:


So bottom line, plexes can hit 4 million, or 5 million, and CCP will only pay lip service to "fixing" this. They won't get serious until they get tangible proof that their corporate income is being hurt by in-game Plex prices. And that may be months before they figure that out.

BTW, I converted virtually all my free cash into Plexes quite a few months ago, and think I have 16 or 18 left. So I plan on taking CCP to task over that time frame, or until other factors outside my control stop me. I am betting on those outside factors.


No they won't, they will be aware of when the upper bounds for plex hurts them, and they'll work to keep it in the healthy range that maximizes their income. Our only issue is we don't know what it is.


Rain6637
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#58 - 2017-06-20 14:50:45 UTC
Nana Skalski wrote:
Post how much PLEX you have.

14500

consolidated the loose change across accounts then right-click sold in jita
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#59 - 2017-06-20 15:11:00 UTC
Nana Skalski wrote:
Post how much PLEX you have.

14500
I just sold all mine. Since I'm not particularly greedy and not much into speculation, I was fine with selling the PLEX I bought at 2.5 for 3. I made a decent profit on them.

Mr Epeen Cool
Joan Maetsuycker
V.O.C. Bensdorp
#60 - 2017-06-20 15:21:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Joan Maetsuycker
My point is as new player with subscription I find it good that Plex become expensive and that lesser people can Plex their account.

People that pay real money for Plex should benefit the most from it with and get much isk for their plex, while people wanting to play free and plex their account should have not it easy to plex like some did for years.

I think it will be healthy with plex going up around 2 billion for 500 plex will be good it would create a situation that players will make a mix of sub and buying plex

example let say a player pays now for a whole year with 6000 plex omega but with prices going up it will be 70/30 or 60/40 plex/sub

that is good for the game

Navik Askiras wrote:
Joan Maetsuycker wrote:
Why should CCP help you a new player that want to Plex his account for a free ride and not want to invest in a subscription,
there is alpha for you to play for free



The objective of play EVE is being Omega... Alpha is good, but not really fun, because you are super limited. As explained Sephiroth Angell somebody must have buy that PLEX from CCP to sell on the Market to the player that will use it. So... Where is your point?