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Posted - 2009.08.11 15:15:00 -
[1]
A Pilot License Extension (PLEX) is an item that adds 30 days of game time to your EVE Online account and this new blog by GM Grimmi tells you everything you need to know about using PLEX to extend the life of your account. Full details are available here.
Navigator
Senior Community Representative
CCP Hf, EVE Online
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zacuis
Great Big Research
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Posted - 2009.08.11 15:32:00 -
[2]
looking forward to the next blog and hoprfully it will detail the mass bannings everyones been talking about.
apologises for spam lol
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Bartholomeus Crane
Gallente
The Crane Family
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Posted - 2009.08.11 15:32:00 -
[3]
Edited by: Bartholomeus Crane on 11/08/2009 15:33:26
I think the PLEX effort is a good one. It does open up EVE for a lot of players worldwide.
I am however also interested in the 'unholy rage' campaign, as the number of times I've encountered ISK selling local spam seems to be on the increase, and is, by all accounts, rather annoying. Reporting on spammers is usually acted upon rather quickly, but apparently, this doesn't stop the buggers from creating yet another account. Surely something could be implemented to make the whole procedure more easy on the player, blocking them is much easier to do for example ...
--
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? |
Gnulpie
Minmatar
Miner Tech
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Posted - 2009.08.11 15:36:00 -
[4]
Good reading!
One question remains though, how do you explain the drastic increase of stocked up PLEX? The amount increased almost by 100% in just 2 months. At the same time, the usage of PLEX to extend accounts even dropped slightly.
At the same time the price of the PLEX drastically dropped by almost 25% - yet still the usage to extend the accounts didn't rise during that time.
Any consistent explanations for that?
Thanks for the blog. There are some really interesting numbers!
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LaVista Vista
Conservative Shenanigans Party
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Posted - 2009.08.11 15:43:00 -
[5]
Pretty graphs. I love it 
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Serenity Steele
Dynamic Data Distribution
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Posted - 2009.08.11 15:48:00 -
[6]
Very interesting. A good addition would be the ability to exchange PLEX for EVE Store credit on Merchandise.
Scenario A:
"Ah, the memories. Look, there's my good old trusty Navy Issue Battleship, the Apocalypse. Laid down some serious pwnage in that hawt piece of doom-machine. Too bad she's just sitting there gathering simulated spacedust now since I'm driving that Strategic Cruiser." Ah wait .. I can exchange it for the physical model. Awesome!
Scenario B:
"Ah the memories. Look at all those threaded way-point maps I collected when I used to do high-sec missions." .. Ah wait, I can exchange them for Strategic Map Books. Awesome!
Only slight *cough* issue is it does open up for Ebay trade of the items :(
≡v≡ Strategic Maps in Eve-Online Store | eve-maps.com |
Wrayeth
Sharks With Frickin' Laser Beams
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Posted - 2009.08.11 15:57:00 -
[7]
Interesting stuff.
That said, I'm wondering what the reference to "the late CCP Oveur" meant, with the words "the late" being struck through. Is this one of those "rumors of my recent demise have been largely exaggerated" situations or something?
-Wrayeth
n00b Extraordinaire
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!" |
Salpad
Carebears with Attitude
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Posted - 2009.08.11 16:37:00 -
[8]
You should make it possible to report ISK selling spammer swine with a single mouse click, just like in WoW. Right-click on the name, and select "Report ISK Seller"¦from the menu.
Then set a database threshold. Once a character has been reported by 15 or 20 or 30 different players, an actual real human being, employed by CCP, looks into the matter, especialy channel messages sent in the minutes prior to the various reportings. If it is indeed ISK seller spam, the banhammer strikes.
A more sophisticated solution gives each player account a report weighting. This can start out at 10 points, but every time an account spam-reports a post that is not in the end deemed to be spam, that account's report weighting is dropped by 1. Thus if one has a single reporting accident, or two, one's weight only drops to 9 or 8 respectively, but a player who keeps reporting others as spammers for no good reason will soon lose all weight - his reports no longer count towards the threshold, since they are weight zero.
--
Salpad
C.E.O., Carebears with Attitude (CBWA) |
Mme Pinkerton
Caldari
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Posted - 2009.08.11 16:43:00 -
[9]
 Originally by: GM Grimmi
There is now a good deal of PLEXes in stock, as shown by the yellow line, which is good for CCP, as it provides them with a steadily growing line of credit.
fixed that for you.
" Credit is the economic judgement on the morality of a man. " |
SecHaul
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:01:00 -
[10]
Originally by: Mme Pinkerton
Originally by: GM Grimmi
There is now a good deal of PLEXes in stock, as shown by the yellow line, which is good for CCP, as it provides them with cash in the bank and credit that if EVE folds they never have to pay back.
fixed that for you.
fixed it for you.
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Meiyang Lee
Gallente
Azteca Transportation Unlimited
Gunboat Diplomacy
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:06:00 -
[11]
Originally by: Gnulpie
Good reading!
One question remains though, how do you explain the drastic increase of stocked up PLEX? The amount increased almost by 100% in just 2 months. At the same time, the usage of PLEX to extend accounts even dropped slightly.
At the same time the price of the PLEX drastically dropped by almost 25% - yet still the usage to extend the accounts didn't rise during that time.
Any consistent explanations for that?
Thanks for the blog. There are some really interesting numbers!
PLEX being used to purchase FanFest tickets would be my guess. Speculation on that part certainly drove the price up, and caused people to purchase PLEX to put up for sale hoping to strike it big while the price was still astronomical.
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Arec Bardwin
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:08:00 -
[12]
More unholy rage.
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Slave 2739FKZ
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:11:00 -
[13]
Originally by: Salpad
You should make it possible to report ISK selling spammer swine with a single mouse click, just like in WoW. Right-click on the name, and select "Report ISK Seller"¦from the menu.
Then set a database threshold. Once a character has been reported by 15 or 20 or 30 different players, an actual real human being, employed by CCP, looks into the matter, especialy channel messages sent in the minutes prior to the various reportings. If it is indeed ISK seller spam, the banhammer strikes.
A more sophisticated solution gives each player account a report weighting. This can start out at 10 points, but every time an account spam-reports a post that is not in the end deemed to be spam, that account's report weighting is dropped by 1. Thus if one has a single reporting accident, or two, one's weight only drops to 9 or 8 respectively, but a player who keeps reporting others as spammers for no good reason will soon lose all weight - his reports no longer count towards the threshold, since they are weight zero.
Good idea, you should open a thread in Assembly Hall, sure a lot of people will support it.
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Generalissima
Vandal Empire
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:17:00 -
[14]
How is buying isk from the ChiComs or directly from other players "destructive" but buying it from CCP "sweetness and light"?
Sorry, RMT, whether it be a CCP monopoly or between others has the same effect, and is either good or bad. Yes, buying from farms is risky because most of them are not legitimate businesses, but CCP isn't any moral superior, in that they are also offering ISK for Euros.
I hate farmers too and love killing them, but CCP has no moral soapbox to stand on.
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Rakshasa Taisab
Caldari
Sane Industries Inc.
Ethereal Dawn
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:26:00 -
[15]
Originally by: Generalissima
How is buying isk from the ChiComs or directly from other players "destructive" but buying it from CCP "sweetness and light"?
What do you mean? PLEX'es are used to buy ISK from other players, CCP is not involved.
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Destination SkillQueue
Are We There Yet
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:29:00 -
[16]
Edited by: Destination SkillQueue on 11/08/2009 17:30:37
Originally by: Generalissima
How is buying isk from the ChiComs or directly from other players "destructive" but buying it from CCP "sweetness and light"?
Sorry, RMT, whether it be a CCP monopoly or between others has the same effect, and is either good or bad.Yes, buying from farms is risky because most of them are not legitimate businesses, but CCP isn't any moral superior, in that they are also offering ISK for Euros.
I hate farmers too and love killing them, but CCP has no moral soapbox to stand on.
Yes they are pretty much the same, except that CCP doesn't offer isk for euros(just gtc/plex=transferrable gametime), isn't involved in criminal activity, doesn't hack players accounts and doesn't use your creditcard info without your permission or sell off your assets. Not to mention the money that goes to CCP is partially used to develop the game further. So almost no difference at all .
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Hikaru Kobayashi
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:41:00 -
[17]
Edited by: Hikaru Kobayashi on 11/08/2009 17:45:51
@Generalissima: The difference is that your money contributes to the game very directly, vs. contributing to the wealth of the Chinese sweatshop owners. Very directly, because every PLEX sold means a player is going to play for another month, a player who might be in your alliance, or fight you in that awesome 1 vs 1 duel tomorrow. Had you not sold the PLEX for ISK, the player would have either 1. stopped playing, or 2. paid CCP the money instead of you. So as you see here, CCP does not actually æmake moneyÆ from this system other than the playerÆs regular fees they would otherwise also receive, and a higher number of active players (which is good for everyone).
Of course that leaves the other question, whether using real money to buy in-game assets is moral, or fair. But if you ask me, the way CCP has done it actually makes the game more fair in two ways: firstly, people with a lot of time on their hands but little or no income can play the game without having to worry about affording the monthly fee. And second, people who have a busy working life will still be able to keep up with the hard-core players. The only thing it hurts is the e-peen of the hard-core players.
Yeah, itÆs a pretty clever system CCP has set up here.
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Gnulpie
Minmatar
Miner Tech
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Posted - 2009.08.11 17:42:00 -
[18]
Originally by: Generalissima
How is buying isk from the ChiComs or directly from other players "destructive" but buying it from CCP "sweetness and light"?
Sorry, RMT, whether it be a CCP monopoly or between others has the same effect, and is either good or bad. Yes, buying from farms is risky because most of them are not legitimate businesses, but CCP isn't any moral superior, in that they are also offering ISK for Euros.
I hate farmers too and love killing them, but CCP has no moral soapbox to stand on.
But you do understand that selling the product "Eve" either with 'normal' accounts via credit-card or with selling GTC (for a similar price) is CCP's business?
And that CCP uses the income from that business to pay for new hardware, emplying devs and improving/fixing Eve.
And that isk sellers will just pocket the real $$$ and contributing nothing to the improvement of Eve, quite the contrary. They will take the $$$ (probably install keyloggers etc.) and just go away with that money, thus hurting CCP and Eve.
You do understand that, right? Right???
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Steve Thomas
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Posted - 2009.08.11 18:46:00 -
[19]
Originally by: GM Grimmi
Everybody, Including the account hacking, credit card stealing forum spamming and macroing ISK sellers who also use plex to keep there accounts going so we largly ignore them anyway unless they do something so brazen that we have no real choice but to pretend we are cracking down on them
fixed your typo for you.
Lets face it you guys are flat out lying to yourselves and everyone else when you try to say that plex is good because the reality is that its only good for you because you get to pocket the cash from that specific RMT.
Here is the reality.
Its still RM for ISK transaction.
you ARE encoraging people to spend real cash to buy ISK.
and according to your little graph thers gona be one hell of a crash in prices comeing up soon because supply is starting to way outpace demand
*.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.*
Stop freaking worrying about why things the developerd did 5 years and more ago no longer make sence. |
Elaron
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2009.08.11 18:50:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Hikaru Kobayashi
So as you see here, CCP does not actually æmake moneyÆ from this system other than the playerÆs regular fees they would otherwise also receive, and a higher number of active players, which is good for everyone.
The 16,000 PLEX that are 'in stock' tells me that CCP has earned over $200,000 more from the player-base than if every current subscriber paid from month-to-month, while the constant difference between number of PLEX created and number of PLEX consumed further tells me that CCP will continue to make more money than they otherwise would from GTC and subscription sales alone.
Originally by: Hikaru Kobayashi
But if you ask me, the way CCP has done it actually makes the game more fair in two ways: firstly, people with a lot of time on their hands but little or no income can play the game without having to worry about affording the monthly fee. And second, people who have a busy working life will still be able to keep up with the hard-core players. The only thing it hurts is the e-peen of the hard-core players.
Hardly hard-core here, and I feel that any kind of RMT greatly devalues certain aspects of gameplay, by making losses too easy to replace and devaluing in-game achievements like earning enough ISK to afford your first battleship. It is also corrosive to the egalitarian ideal that your own efforts in-game, mixed with a little luck, are what determines your overall success. Monopoly would be a lot less fun if a richer opponent of yours could pay the banker some cash in return for all of the stations, or the utilities.
Originally by: Gnulpie
And that isk sellers will just pocket the real $$$ and contributing nothing to the improvement of Eve, quite the contrary. They will take the $$$ (probably install keyloggers etc.) and just go away with that money, thus hurting CCP and Eve.
It's almost a shame that the illegitimate (in CCP's eyes) ISK sellers resort to underhanded tactics to feed their greed. If they were completely above-board in their dealings, then the most immoral thing (beyond the question of the moral nature of RMT itself, and questions regarding worker exploitation) they could be accused of is making profit off of someone elses property, something which CCP does not allow but other games are perfectly happy with (Second Life being the easiest example to cite). As such companies would need a significant number of paid-for accounts, a proportion of that money still goes back to CCP. In other words, with an 'honest' RMT company, a proportion of your money is still going to CCP's pocket, making the money cycle very similar to the legitimate RMT cash cycle that is in place.
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Jonathan Calvert
Minmatar
Empire Mining and Trade
Matari Visionary Coalition
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Posted - 2009.08.11 19:49:00 -
[21]
I also think its kind of unfair for someone to be able to use real money to buy isk and thus out compete with me. Say a new ship comes out and you have to buy 10bil worth of BPOs to produce. One person can spend time in game to earn the money to buy the BPOs. Someone else can buy 10bil ISK. How is that fair?
Sure, the PLEX cuts down on stealing CCP property, but it also means CCP is endorsing paying to avoid playing.
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Salpad
Carebears with Attitude
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Posted - 2009.08.11 20:05:00 -
[22]
Originally by: Slave 2739FKZ
Good idea, you should open a thread in Assembly Hall, sure a lot of people will support it.
I can't be bothered, but you and others are welcome to present the idea on there, or in other sub-forums. Since the idea isn't even mine (I stole it from Blizzard), you don't have to give me credit for it if you do post about it.
--
Salpad
C.E.O., Carebears with Attitude (CBWA) |
Iridescent Moon
Caldari
Iridescent Dawn
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Posted - 2009.08.11 20:30:00 -
[23]
Originally by: Gnulpie
Good reading!
One question remains though, how do you explain the drastic increase of stocked up PLEX? The amount increased almost by 100% in just 2 months. At the same time, the usage of PLEX to extend accounts even dropped slightly.
PLEX is one of the elements of Eve I follow closely. I would not be playing Eve without it. This is a repost, you can look at my posting history for other PLEX comments. It is mostly what this pilot posts about. This post is from June 13th.
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1095914&page=3#76
Quote:
If you look at the market graph in Jita for PLEX you see a manipulation starting about a month ago (May 20th). Then prices fall. When CCP announced the PLEX for FanFest deal the price shot up. As stated in my previous post the numbers of PLEX that will be consumed by PLEX for FanFest is fairly small when looking at the broader PLEX market. What really happened is that speculators heard about FanFest and thought it would be a good time to get in on PLEX and resell later with the assumed impending boost from the expected PLEX usage increase.
Let me stated this clearly. The Price increase since May 20th has been do to SPECULATION not do to consumption. THis is clearly demonstrated in this thread. You see 2 types of posts...
Speculation: "I have invested in PLEX, you should too."
Less Demand: "PLEX are to expensive, I have/will stop using PLEX for my account(s)"
I can't wait for the crash, it will be fun to watch.
Rampant speculation pushed the price up to a level that lowered consumption of PLEX. Speculators were buying and hoarding PLEX. Eventually the PLEX for Fanfest wave was over. Stacked on top of that was a rumored RMT macro ban. Both caused a reduction in demand. Eventually the bubble popped. Now all those speculators are holding PLEX they bought at 300-375 million. They were trading a wave they hoped would go well above 400 million but, the price has dipped and stayed down. If they dump they lose money so they will hold.
If PLEX prices rise people will unload access stock pushing the price back down. According to the graph we are probably looking at months of low cost PLEX before you will see any tangible price increases.
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Gnulpie
Minmatar
Miner Tech
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Posted - 2009.08.11 21:13:00 -
[24]
Originally by: Jonathan Calvert
I also think its kind of unfair for someone to be able to use real money to buy isk and thus out compete with me.
I think it is kind of unfair for someone to spend real life money to buy a game item and then loses it within seconds.
See? That argument goes both ways.
If I would buy 10 bil with GTC I would have to sell 30+ PLEX which would cost way over $400.
So risking $400 for just some internet spaceship which can explode any moment is nothing for the light hearted.
Actually I would prefer to lose 10 bil in game money instead of losing $400. But if someone wants to pay that much and enable other people to play the game cheap or even 'free', then I do not mind.
I think the PLEX trade is one of CCP's most brilliant ideas over the years.
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Nierna
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Posted - 2009.08.11 21:46:00 -
[25]
fair or not. encouraging RMT or not players will always try to buy ingame money for real money no mater howmuch you are against it. now ask yourself this. would you rather have CCP get that money or some chineese dude running several computers with macro programs.
its chosing the lesser of 2 evils that is being done here.
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iP0D
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Posted - 2009.08.12 01:00:00 -
[26]
I'm a bit annoyed there is no pink in the pretty graphs 
Beyond that, looking forward to the next blog. Details on the bannings and cleanups would be great, feed us soap operas and farmer tears 
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Hector Pirensis
The Blood Roses
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Posted - 2009.08.12 02:58:00 -
[27]
Damn those isk-sellers trying to spoil the fun. The playing field is much leveler now that it is LEGITIMATE to just buy your way through EVE using RL money. I welcome the fairness and competition of a 15 year old using Dad's credit card to buy (a) a five year old account, (b) +5s, (c) and a carrier or two, while I still put in an hour or so a day as I always have and still try to 'aspire' to these endeavours through honest toil. I can honestly say the game was a lot more challenging and rewarding before this started. I spent 6 months mining and saving to build my first freighter and it was immensely rewarding - but I really feel like a fool when I see this n00b gameplay purchase nonsense all pushed by CCP. It's really hard to see they care.
Bah Sig. |
Abyss Wyrm
Caldari
The-corp
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Posted - 2009.08.12 04:32:00 -
[28]
Quote:
Not only are PLEXes good for extending EVE Online subscriptions but they are also a hot market item and the in-game market offers great opportunities for market savvy individuals. There are tycoons out there who have made their fortunes in the PLEX market, buying low - selling high.
Soooo... jita scammers are now "tycoons", hm.... i wonder...
My standing service is available now again, check this link. |
Deviana Sevidon
Gallente
Panta-Rhei
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Posted - 2009.08.12 06:54:00 -
[29]
Please give us a Battle Report on how Operation "Unholy Rage" went, as soon as possible.
Quote:
Disclaimer: All mentioned above contains my opinion and is therefore an absolute truth (for me anyway, my universe, muhahaha.....ok, done
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Max Omega
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Posted - 2009.08.12 07:18:00 -
[30]
Originally by: Steve Thomas
Originally by: GM Grimmi
Everybody, Including the account hacking, credit card stealing forum spamming and macroing ISK sellers who also use plex to keep there accounts going so we largly ignore them anyway unless they do something so brazen that we have no real choice but to pretend we are cracking down on them
fixed your typo for you.
Lets face it you guys are flat out lying to yourselves and everyone else when you try to say that plex is good because the reality is that its only good for you because you get to pocket the cash from that specific RMT.
Here is the reality.
Its still RM for ISK transaction.
you ARE encoraging people to spend real cash to buy ISK.
and according to your little graph thers gona be one hell of a crash in prices comeing up soon because supply is starting to way outpace demand
Err...you don't buy ISK with PLEX's you buy game time, true you can then sell your game time for isk, but that's just shifting isk from one account to another. For RMT, the money usually flows out of the game, without getting game time in place.
Buying a PLEX is no different than buying account time with your credit-card or GTC's, in both cases the money goes to CCP for developing the game and the game time goes to a player, only with PLEX's it's possible to move the game time around a bit through trade.
And yes there might be a crash, but then more people will probably tempted to buy the PLEX's and prices will rise again, which is kinda how markets work, supply and demand...
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Qujulome
Amarr
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Posted - 2009.08.12 07:34:00 -
[31]
Read PLEX as micro-transaction. This is a good thing. |
Sade Onyx
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Posted - 2009.08.12 12:13:00 -
[32]
Why did you put "The late" CCP Oveur then cross it out, did he leave and come back? did he die and come back?
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Abrazzar
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Posted - 2009.08.12 12:16:00 -
[33]
RMT vs PLEX
RMT: You get the ISK immediately and get it later removed again from GMs.
PLEX: Someone needs to buy the PLEX from you first before you get ISK but you may keep it.
RMT != PLEX
--------
Ideas for: Mining
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Typhado3
Minmatar
Ashen Lion Mining and Production Consortium
Aeternus.
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Posted - 2009.08.12 13:40:00 -
[34]
always liked the way ccp handle plex. are ccp the only people who do this? I know quite a few let you buy items in game directly but wondering if this system is unique?
------------------------------
Just a crazy inventor
ccp fix mining agent missions % pls
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Mia Zheng
Caldari
The Blue Dagger Mercenery Agency
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Posted - 2009.08.12 13:55:00 -
[35]
Originally by: Elaron
The 16,000 PLEX that are 'in stock' tells me that CCP has earned over $200,000 more from the player-base than if every current subscriber paid from month-to-month
16,000 PLEX means that 8,000 60 Day GTC's must have been sold for a total of $279,920
16,000 months worth of subscription at a monthly sub price of 14.95 Euro (~ $21) totals to $336,000
16,000 months worth of subscription at a yearly sub price of 131.40 Euro (~ $186) so $15.50 per month will total to $248,000
So CCP are actually making less money then selling game time as a month by month subscription and would only make more profit if all players bought a yearly subscription for Euro players
Now we know that Americans get the game time cheaper so overall it possibly may even out but im not sure how much it costs for them.
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Nareg Maxence
Gallente
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Posted - 2009.08.12 14:08:00 -
[36]
UNHOLY RAGE!!!
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort
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Posted - 2009.08.12 16:40:00 -
[37]
Edited by: Nyphur on 12/08/2009 16:44:15
I objected to the GTC for isk trade when it came out but I quickly came to like the system. People will buy isk through illegitimate means if they can't get it legitimately, giving an official route like PLEX to facilitate the trade of ISK between players was in hindsight a good move. The only thing missing from this devblog I'd say is info on how much detected RMT incidents have dropped as plex have become more popular (including info from before the GTC trade was permitted up to when PLEX came in and then up to the present day). A graph showing this and one showing the average price of ISK on RMT sites over time would be very revealing of the effectiveness that PLEX have in fighting RMT.
Originally by: Sade Onyx
Why did you put "The late" CCP Oveur then cross it out, did he leave and come back? did he die and come back?
Could be because he's sort of fallen off the face of the earth ^^. He used to be very involved with devblogs, forum postings and appearances at events but from what I gather he's been mega busy in recent years.
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Ky Vatta
Majority 12
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Posted - 2009.08.12 17:50:00 -
[38]
I see the PLEX-scammers are out in force in Jita already, but that is one market CCP doesn`t enforce (tho I think it should make it illegal)
---
Self-confessed Carebear, and proud of it |
HyperZerg
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Posted - 2009.08.12 19:24:00 -
[39]
Quote:
In short, everybody wins. Everybody, except the account hacking, credit card stealing and macroing ISK sellers, that is.
So players that macroing for themselfs win too. Check out the other half of mainly Ravens with -10 Standing to exact one NPC-Fraction, ratting up to 23/7 in a empty empty 0.0 system.
ISK-Sellers have a hard time. Yeah but normal botters just continue farming their billions of ISK all day .....
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Iridescent Moon
Caldari
Iridescent Dawn
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Posted - 2009.08.12 21:30:00 -
[40]
Originally by: Mia Zheng
Originally by: Elaron
The 16,000 PLEX that are 'in stock' tells me that CCP has earned over $200,000 more from the player-base than if every current subscriber paid from month-to-month
16,000 PLEX means that 8,000 60 Day GTC's must have been sold for a total of $279,920
16,000 months worth of subscription at a monthly sub price of 14.95 Euro (~ $21) totals to $336,000
16,000 months worth of subscription at a yearly sub price of 131.40 Euro (~ $186) so $15.50 per month will total to $248,000
So CCP are actually making less money then selling game time as a month by month subscription and would only make more profit if all players bought a yearly subscription for Euro players
Now we know that Americans get the game time cheaper so overall it possibly may even out but im not sure how much it costs for them.
Your numbers are wrong.
16,000 PLEX = 8,000 GTC
GTC = 34.95 (PLEX = GTC/2 = 17.47)
8,000 * 34.95 = 279600 (8000 GTC = 16000 months of subs)
16,000 * 14.95 = 239200
(GTC)279600 - (monthly Sub)239200 = 40400
Ah yearly subs
131.40 / 12 = 10.95
16,000 * 10.95 = 175200
(GTC)279600 - (Yearly Sub)175200 = 74400
CCP makes more money off selling time codes then any other way of having a sub.
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Ben Derindar
Dirty Deeds Corp.
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Posted - 2009.08.12 22:07:00 -
[41]
The unholy rage, please be bringing it on. \o/
/Ben
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Nova Sato
Caldari
In Theory.
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Posted - 2009.08.12 23:03:00 -
[42]
As a new player the possibility that I could sell a PLEX or two is an exciting possibility for myself.
I am on a limited budget so I can not afford too many, but selling one or two will give me the starting capital I need to get a running start at the game.
And it is killing three birds with one stone so to speak, The gold/isk sellers get a kick in the teeth when CCP makes them unable to compete and hopefully this will drive them out of EVE and on to other games where it is easier to make money, and secondarily it will reduce the amount of begging for cash from new players, Because a player with modest means can sell a PLEX or two to an established player in a fair trade and both of them will benefit, the established player will get a valuable commodity in the form of a PLEX that they can keep and sell on or a month of game time that they did not have to spend real cash for, and the new player will get a nice boost of cash that will see them through to difficult early stages of the game and into the mid stages of the game,
And finally as a consequence of this they will be far more likely to stay once they become established like this and the game in general will benefit by gaining another long term player.
_______________________________________________________________________
The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible. |
Sgt Blade
Caldari
Veto.
Veto Corp
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 01:13:00 -
[43]
Originally by: Iridescent Moon
Your numbers are wrong.
16,000 PLEX = 8,000 GTC
GTC = 34.95 (PLEX = GTC/2 = 17.47)
8,000 * 34.95 = 279600 (8000 GTC = 16000 months of subs)
16,000 * 14.95 = 239200
(GTC)279600 - (monthly Sub)239200 = 40400
Ah yearly subs
131.40 / 12 = 10.95
16,000 * 10.95 = 175200
(GTC)279600 - (Yearly Sub)175200 = 74400
CCP makes more money off selling time codes then any other way of having a sub.
My calcs are correct, I did them for Euro prices and you just did them for US prices
*note I hate how my alt pops up
Hypnotic Pelvic Thrusting Level 5 |
Steve Thomas
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 03:58:00 -
[44]
Originally by: Max Omega
Originally by: Steve Thomas
Originally by: GM Grimmi
Err...you don't buy ISK with PLEX's you buy game time, true you can then sell your game time for isk, but that's just shifting isk from one account to another. For RMT, the money usually flows out of the game, without getting game time in place.
...
ok let me ask you a question
where does the plex come from
do you pull it out of your butt?
is it a module Drop from an NPC?
is it a epic quest reward item?
No it literaly does not exist untill someone pays cash (either via a credit card or whatever) for it!
Bascialy when you pay for a Plex with cash you have given CCP money.
you then log into the game click a few virtual buttons And BAM you have isk in your wallet.
the person who sold you isk got something worth about 14.95 usd
when you go to thoes online ISK sellers you pay money to a broker. you log in and boom you have some cash in your wallet (that is untill CCP figures out that you got money from one of the ISK vendors and then negative balances your account) and boom.
Trying to to somehow magicaly in your mind erase the fact that CCP took your cash from you when you bought the plex in the first place so that CCP could give the person you get isk from more game time is pure Grade A Bull crap. Congradulations you realy seem to enjoy scarfing it down by the honeybucket load.
Any time anyone can spend cash to get ahead of people who dont spend cash its just flat out wrong. the fact that CCP has gone out of there way to profit from it just makes it worse.
CCP to me crossed the line a long time ago from being a legit game developer whos more interested in keeping the game a more or less level playing feild to yet another bunch of people who put making a few more bucks first.
THAT the reality
They are Hipocrits. They stoped being Game developers the second they did that and started being marketers.
and heres the sad part, they suck at it.
third party ISK for Real cash is suposedly against the rules. why? Because the only legit method of paying for is to pay Big daddy CCP for the privelege of getting ISK for cash.
But they dont even realy try to enforce there so called monopoly.
Literaly the only time I have seen Bannhammers hit the various Isk scamming efforts that hit the system all coincided when someone finaly shoved there face into the fire and held it there with proof that they could not just ignore that people were gaming the system to a rediculous degree. unless that happens they dont do ****. (and even when they do something its just a bloody 30 day suspension and poom here they come back with the exact same names on day 31. . . big whoop)
hell look at the bloody forum. its being spammed by a freaking bot thats flooding it with usualy the EXACT SAME BLOODY SUBJECT TITAL. there efforts to fix the bloody thing have all been pathetic.(despite the fact that other game developers have more or less shut down wanabee keylogers by taking some shockingly simple steps like not allowing unpayed accounts posting priveleges) why? Its bloody obvious that they honestly dont care. its not realy hurting their bottom line because there is only so many people who will swap Cash for Plex for isk so who gives a crap.
*.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.*
Stop freaking worrying about why things the developerd did 5 years and more ago no longer make sence. |
Steve Thomas
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 04:06:00 -
[45]
Edited by: Steve Thomas on 13/08/2009 04:10:50
Originally by: Qujulome
Read PLEX as micro-transaction. This is a good thing.
Go take a look at a game called Evony. its one of thoes "its a good thing" micro transaction game.
they expect you to pay 30 USD a week to play because they give out bonuses to people who spend that mutch every week thats worth ~50 USD
they also have a subscription plan based on you paying them 200 USD for a 15 week bonus that gets larger the last few weeks that you can add to the 30 a week. . but then your back to week 1 so you need to have overlaping subscriptions to keep your income from crashing every three months. . .
all to play a game thats bascialy a dumbed down automated spreadsheet version of civilization but with graphics that would have been a joke in Civ 2.
oh or take a look at the SIMs three
you can spend over 300 USD just to get 1 and 1/2 Stuff packs worth of stuff! oh wait, for the same ammount you could have gotten several Dozen expansion packs worth of items in the SIMs 2
and then tell me that Micro-transactios are a good thing!
*.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.*
Stop freaking worrying about why things the developerd did 5 years and more ago no longer make sence. |
Garia666
Amarr
T.H.U.G L.I.F.E
Veritas Immortalis
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 07:04:00 -
[46]
nice and all but tbh i liked the old selling allot better.
Youy used to have a good name and be trustworthy..
Now every person can sell them without making a name for them selfs.
Im hoping ccp will start selling more products true the plex system.
Like selling the items from teh store.
www.garia.net |
Max Omega
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 07:20:00 -
[47]
Originally by: Steve Thomas
Originally by: Max Omega
Err...you don't buy ISK with PLEX's you buy game time, true you can then sell your game time for isk, but that's just shifting isk from one account to another. For RMT, the money usually flows out of the game, without getting game time in place.
...
ok let me ask you a question
where does the plex come from
do you pull it out of your butt?
is it a module Drop from an NPC?
is it a epic quest reward item?
No it literaly does not exist untill someone pays cash (either via a credit card or whatever) for it!
...
Your missing the point, yes I understand you can get isk if you sell the PLEX you bought with real money.
But there's a big difference between RMT and the PLEX system.
Whether you use subscriptions or PLEX's, you buy game time from CCP, what you choose to do with that game time is then your problem, they just introduced a way to trade the game-time first before using it.
When using RMT you get isk, no game time is introduced, CCP does not get any money for game-time, and therefore no money for maintenance of the game.
|
Jonathan Calvert
Minmatar
Empire Mining and Trade
Matari Visionary Coalition
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 12:08:00 -
[48]
Originally by: Gnulpie
Originally by: Jonathan Calvert
I also think its kind of unfair for someone to be able to use real money to buy isk and thus out compete with me.
I think it is kind of unfair for someone to spend real life money to buy a game item and then loses it within seconds.
See? That argument goes both ways.
If I would buy 10 bil with GTC I would have to sell 30+ PLEX which would cost way over $400.
So risking $400 for just some internet spaceship which can explode any moment is nothing for the light hearted.
Actually I would prefer to lose 10 bil in game money instead of losing $400. But if someone wants to pay that much and enable other people to play the game cheap or even 'free', then I do not mind.
I think the PLEX trade is one of CCP's most brilliant ideas over the years.
Theres no reason CCP cant accept ISK for time without selling the isk for cash, as long as there are enough paying customers. If they simply enforce their EULA ruthlessly, everyone wins. No isk farmers, no pay to win players, people still can play for free.
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Jowen Datloran
Caldari
Science and Trade Institute
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 12:10:00 -
[49]
Edited by: Jowen Datloran on 13/08/2009 12:10:55
Your chain breaks here:
Originally by: Steve Thomas
the person who sold you isk got something worth about 14.95 usd
because the person got NOTHING worth about 14.95 usd.
What he got is a month of gameplay time that it is in no way possible to convert into real world cash. True, from the perspective of the PLEX seller it might look like RMT, but it certainly do not look that way in the perspective of the PLEX buyer. Or you please tell me how buying PLEX will help me fund a new car.
As already been pointed out, contrary to RMT the cash ends up at CCP instead of some sweatshop and as such goes back to support those who develop and maintain the game for us to continue playing instead of helping the sweatshop owner to buy himself a new car.
----------------
Mr. Science & Trade Institute
|
Jonathan Calvert
Minmatar
Empire Mining and Trade
Matari Visionary Coalition
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 12:11:00 -
[50]
Originally by: Nova Sato
As a new player the possibility that I could sell a PLEX or two is an exciting possibility for myself.
I am on a limited budget so I can not afford too many, but selling one or two will give me the starting capital I need to get a running start at the game.
And it is killing three birds with one stone so to speak, The gold/isk sellers get a kick in the teeth when CCP makes them unable to compete and hopefully this will drive them out of EVE and on to other games where it is easier to make money, and secondarily it will reduce the amount of begging for cash from new players, Because a player with modest means can sell a PLEX or two to an established player in a fair trade and both of them will benefit, the established player will get a valuable commodity in the form of a PLEX that they can keep and sell on or a month of game time that they did not have to spend real cash for, and the new player will get a nice boost of cash that will see them through to difficult early stages of the game and into the mid stages of the game,
And finally as a consequence of this they will be far more likely to stay once they become established like this and the game in general will benefit by gaining another long term player.
See perfect example. The rest of us work for our isk. You want a running start, which means you wont learn those lessons, especially about how hard and harsh eve is. As as you say, that type of player will be more likely to stay.
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Ghoest
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 15:25:00 -
[51]
Yay for the super awesome great plex - good times for everyone!!!
whatever
Wherever you went - Here you are.
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Cergorach
Amarr
Black-Sun
Pitch Black Legion
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 21:08:00 -
[52]
Let's start by saying that it's CCP's game, their servers, and they decide how things are done on their servers. So if they don't want others profiting from their hard work, they have that right, just as you have that right with your IP. So if CCP doesn't allow RMT, the you'll have to accept it or risk losing your isk, your character or even your account(s). What CCP does allow is the buying and selling of PLEXes for isk, you can buy PLEXes from CCP and GTC (which you can transform into PLEXes) authorized sellers. CCP sells gametime, which might be traded for isk (and in some cases for something else, like tickets for fanfest). Sure CCP gets better from it and might be considered by some to be RMT, but it really isn't. CCP has an finite amount of players that have accounts, sure some will want more accounts if they can 'buy' gametime with isk, but there is a limit on how many PLEXes/GTCs/Subscriptions CCP will sell. Moving some of those subscriptions to PLEXes/GTC makes CCP lose the subscription sale and gain the PLEX/GTC sale. Some people are saying that CCP is making way more money with PLEXes then with subscriptions, but the subscription sales receives CCP directly, while most of the PLEX sales CCP receives through an authorized reseller of GTCs, who also needs his/her cut. As we do not know how big that cut is, we don't really know if PLEXes are better or worse for CCP.
Also bad assumptions:
- Doing calculations with yearly subscription prices. Sure lots of folks go for the yearly subscription, but many do not because they don't have the entire amount lying around or want to have the flexibility to suspend the subscription when they want.
- Doing calculations in one currency. You might have noticed that the $ vs. Ç is good for Europeans, it's bad for the US. But CCP forces you to pay in your local currency, GTC sellers don't. So most Europeans look at sites such as Shattered Crystal to buy their GTC => PLEXes ($35 => Ç26), instead of CCP (Ç35), so CCP loses twice (once to the dollar and once to the reseller cut).
RMT isn't illegal, but it isn't allowed by the EVE EULA, so CCP can hit the ban button when you do RMT. I do find it a bit annoying that CCP keeps trying to connect RMT with illegal activities such as hacking accounts, credit card fraud, etc. There by suggesting that RMT is illegal. I just can't see the majority of the RMT sellers stooping to such illegal activity, it's bad for business! Word would get around fast when a big seller was stealing CC information, totally destroying any further business they would have. The same goes with account hacking, it's to easy to counter and reverse, thus costing your customer isk and loosing that customer for ever. I see the whole illegal mumbo-jumbo as a big PR attempt to paint RMT with a bad name, I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, just not as often as CCP suggests...
That of course doesn't mean I condone RMT, I'm totally for the whole PLEX thing!
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Memphis Baas
|
Posted - 2009.08.13 23:51:00 -
[53]
Nice 30-minute infomercial!
Although, it's missing the legalese and the side-effects notification.
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Vyktor Abyss
Gallente
The Abyss Corporation
Abyss Alliance
|
Posted - 2009.08.14 09:39:00 -
[54]
Sorry but I think CCP have made a fundamental ****up.
PLEX is a halfway house to buying ISK for real cash, and you're allowing/encouraging those rich in ISK to play for free by exploiting those dumb/rich enough to pay for ISK.
It badly affects the game in many ways that I won't mention with one minor beneficial side effect of allowing a few individuals to play who otherwise couldn't.
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Mara Rinn
|
Posted - 2009.08.14 14:47:00 -
[55]
Originally by: Vyktor Abyss
It badly affects the game in many ways that I won't mention with one minor beneficial side effect of allowing a few individuals to play who otherwise couldn't.
Name one way that trading my ISK for play time badly affects the game?
[Aussie players: join channel ANZAC] |
Vyktor Abyss
Gallente
The Abyss Corporation
Abyss Alliance
|
Posted - 2009.08.14 17:36:00 -
[56]
Character SP farmers.
Macro/bot accounts.
Datacore farmers.
3 things that definately feck up Eve for your average player.
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TheOnlyProphet
Amarr
Altus Provisio
Violent Society
|
Posted - 2009.08.14 21:00:00 -
[57]
I'm sure a lot of you run corporations both RL and in-game.
Corporations are beholden to no one except its owners. In the case of publicly owned corporations the owners are 'shareholders'.
A corporation's priority by law and definition is to profit its owners. For the smart corporations, this profit = growth. Obviously, without growth, the corporation dies.
It might seem as if the customer should be the top priority because a common train of logic is; satisfied customers = more customers = more profit.
Customers are only a priority insofar as they are a resource; a resource with stipulations, and in the game business, that stipulation is entertainment.
From the perspective of a corporation owner both in and out of EVE, I consider it criminal to allow ANYone else to profit from MY business except for me, my partners, and trade partners who trade for mutual benefit.
That being said, me creating a system to reroute exploited money back to me = genius.
CCP creating a system to reroute exploited money back to CCP = genius.
Corporate priorities = Shareholders > Growth > Employees > Customers.
Deal with it.
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TheOnlyProphet
Amarr
Altus Provisio
Violent Society
|
Posted - 2009.08.14 21:15:00 -
[58]
Oh, and a game developer doesn't cease to be a game developer unless they stop making money, thereby losing their ability to develop games.
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Cyclops43
|
Posted - 2009.08.14 22:24:00 -
[59]
Originally by: Gnulpie
One question remains though, how do you explain the drastic increase of stocked up PLEX? The amount increased almost by 100% in just 2 months. At the same time, the usage of PLEX to extend accounts even dropped slightly.
Dunno for sure, but the time when the stocked up PLEX starts going up matches pretty well the date when a lot of the farmers suddenly disappeared....
Still no information whether this was because of CCP action, or if the majority of farming was actually done by one company which then decided to move to greener pastures, or went bust...
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BlondieBC
Minmatar
Galactic Exploration and Missions
|
Posted - 2009.08.14 23:11:00 -
[60]
Originally by: Gnulpie
Good reading!
One question remains though, how do you explain the drastic increase of stocked up PLEX? The amount increased almost by 100% in just 2 months. At the same time, the usage of PLEX to extend accounts even dropped slightly.
At the same time the price of the PLEX drastically dropped by almost 25% - yet still the usage to extend the accounts didn't rise during that time.
Any consistent explanations for that?
Thanks for the blog. There are some really interesting numbers!
IMO, the run up to 400K is mkt manipulation. The run up in inventory is the result.
|
Vyktor Abyss
Gallente
The Abyss Corporation
Abyss Alliance
|
Posted - 2009.08.15 01:04:00 -
[61]
Originally by: TheOnlyProphet
I'm sure a lot of you run corporations both RL and in-game.
Corporations are beholden to no one except its owners. In the case of publicly owned corporations the owners are 'shareholders'.
A corporation's priority by law and definition is to profit its owners. For the smart corporations, this profit = growth. Obviously, without growth, the corporation dies.
It might seem as if the customer should be the top priority because a common train of logic is; satisfied customers = more customers = more profit.
Customers are only a priority insofar as they are a resource; a resource with stipulations, and in the game business, that stipulation is entertainment.
From the perspective of a corporation owner both in and out of EVE, I consider it criminal to allow ANYone else to profit from MY business except for me, my partners, and trade partners who trade for mutual benefit.
That being said, me creating a system to reroute exploited money back to me = genius.
CCP creating a system to reroute exploited money back to CCP = genius.
Corporate priorities = Shareholders > Growth > Employees > Customers.
Deal with it.
Spot on. I realise its mostly about the money for CCP too, but there's no harm in trying to jerk their conscience from time to time either...no matter how futile an act. 
|
Steve Thomas
|
Posted - 2009.08.15 21:04:00 -
[62]
Edited by: Steve Thomas on 15/08/2009 21:15:12
Edited by: Steve Thomas on 15/08/2009 21:07:35
Originally by: Jowen Datloran
Edited by: Jowen Datloran on 13/08/2009 12:10:55
Your chain breaks here:
Originally by: Steve Thomas
the person who sold you isk got something worth about 14.95 usd
because the person got NOTHING worth about 14.95 usd.
What he got is a month of gameplay time that it is in no way possible to convert into real world cash.
sigh lets get this right. Never mind for a second that the other player is receiving a real world vaule (the ability to play the game) for handing over isk. and never mind the fact that in interview after intervied on the topic from the very gold farmers that CCP pretends to go after on a daily basis (wich is bullcrap, all I have to do is look at whos in local and see the reality after literaly pending literaly weeks logging there activities and reporting it)who say they use Gamecards payed for by ingame sales and swaps. your argument is along the lines of
"the person got nothing but 30 days of gameplay that he did not have to pay for. . ." first off thats flat out bullcrap and you know it. if he did not hand over his isk he would have had to hand over his real life cash. you can put all the effort trying to put a shine on it all you want but in the end you still have a handfull of crap and you smell like it too. but thats not my real problem with RMT.
Literaly what CCP "allows" is for someone to walts over to there "pay us money" page put in enough for 2-4 plexes and go in game and convert it into say a nice T3 ship amd the character skilled up to fly, and the modules rigs and and implant and so on directly to the player,
for all intents and purposes CCP might as well have sold the ship to player directly, because THAT IS WHAT IS LITERALY GOING ON HERE.
So is the idea of CCP selling Plex for ISK still Good for you?
here is the worst part of all of this.
if they are booking revinue as income based on when the Plex are used(thus freeing the cash from the "Unredeemed plex" account and moving it to "earned income" there is NOTHING I REPETE NOTHING to stop the same developers who had no problem with what T-20 did (hell they promoted him didnt they?) from going to the new account page, creating a few dozen accounts, GM spawning ISK and buying up some of the plex surplus, then spawning whatever is needed to soak up the cash.
wash rinse repeat as needed.
to me it honestly makes no diference if CCP does it directly or hides behind some of its player base by saying "were doing it for the Children. . .(god I was sick of hearing that from the republicans now I get to hear that crap from the democrats) . . . er I mean players who cant afford the accounts
CCP has decided to make EVE in part a micro transaction game to help suport there bottom line.
I cant wait to see what other Mirco transaction "options" CCP decides to bootstrap to the game to make a few more bucks.\
heck they already tried to boostrap fanfair to the Microplexactions
*.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.*
Stop freaking worrying about why things the developerd did 5 years and more ago no longer make sence. |
Kerfira
|
Posted - 2009.08.16 10:24:00 -
[63]
Originally by: Steve Thomas
...for all intents and purposes CCP might as well have sold the ship to player directly, because THAT IS WHAT IS LITERALY GOING ON HERE.
Ehh... No.
Is that was what CCP had done, they would have directly influenced the EVE economy by adding resources, in that case minerals assembled into a ship.
Selling GTC's has just about a 0 (zero!) effect on the EVE economy (apart from sales taxes).
All that happens with GTC's is, that a single function item is created (the PLEX), traded to another player for ISK, then taken out of the game when that player uses it.
If CCP didn't do this, IT WOULD STILL HAPPEN! It would just be the ISK farmers who'd get the money and not CCP. Money going to CCP goes to fund the game we all like, so it is far better they get it.
So in effect, the PLEX trade is not micro-transactions as other games do them, but simply an easy and convenient way to facilitate one player selling game-time for ISK to another player. That it manifests itself as an in-game item is just for convenience.
If it was a REAL micro-transaction game, you'd not be able to progress if you DIDN'T use it!
You make a lot of criticism, but you don't provide any alternatives...
The problem here is RMT. In any game of this nature, players will ALWAYS be looking to trade real money for game money. It can't be prevented, so the real challenge is to find a way for it to happen WITHOUT the destabilising effects on the economy.
PLEX cards are in fact a very good solution to this problem. If you can make a better one, I'm sure CCP will listen.... but you can't.... It's much easier just to rant and rave...
Originally by: CCP Wrangler
EVE isn't designed to just look like a cold, dark and harsh world, it's designed to be a cold, dark and harsh world.
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Hikaru Kobayashi
|
Posted - 2009.08.17 16:55:00 -
[64]
Edited by: Hikaru Kobayashi on 17/08/2009 17:04:53
Originally by: Elaron
Originally by: Hikaru Kobayashi
But if you ask me, the way CCP has done it actually makes the game more fair in two ways: firstly, people with a lot of time on their hands but little or no income can play the game without having to worry about affording the monthly fee. And second, people who have a busy working life will still be able to keep up with the hard-core players. The only thing it hurts is the e-peen of the hard-core players.
Hardly hard-core here, and I feel that any kind of RMT greatly devalues certain aspects of gameplay, by making losses too easy to replace and devaluing in-game achievements like earning enough ISK to afford your first battleship.
So, you donÆt think it is at all unfair if only the jobless people with all the time in the world on their hands, or those that have No LifeÖ, are able to get the most out of the game (i.e. eventually afford capital class ships etc.)? Because I kinda think it is.
I have a job, and generally other things to do than play EVE all day, and frankly grinding rats isnÆt exactly what I like to do when I play. IÆd rather PVP, which isnÆt exactly a good source of ISK. That talk about about ætoo easy to replaceÆ is nice and all, but do consider that a battleship loss for a hard-core player is a day of work to replace, for me it is more like a week.
And remember, in the end, it is not grinding ISK that requires skill. The only thing you would be able to tell in a game without PLEXes is that a player likes to shoot rats, a lot.
Not that I sell a lot of PLEXes, by the way, but that carrier I bought recently (after ~4 years of playing on and off) was a little too far out of my ISK budget.
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Steve Thomas
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Posted - 2009.08.17 18:37:00 -
[65]
Edited by: Steve Thomas on 17/08/2009 18:38:00
Originally by: Kerfira
-thoughless drivel
oh Gee lets see theres a dev blog wherer they are crowing about how they hammered the RTM people,
another where they bascialy remind people that they do negative balance players who buy money from RTMs
If they were serioud though they should go through and banhammer both the people who sell ISK and the people who buy ISK.
Period.
But you seem to be perfectly fine with people being able to pay extra to get an edge.
So let me ask you what Quote:
you
think is a fair price to play the game? 100 a month? 500? because there are people out there who do blow that kind of cash on mmos (yes even in this craptasticaly bad economy) and quite frankly thats the kind of Game CCP seems to be hellbent on turning EVE into.
Wake up and smell the Burning napalm thats in your lap you Idiot.
CCP wants to shut down the outside RMT tranactions.
but the problem is that there is simply too mutch demand in Real USD terms for ingame isk to ever be properly supplied by people selling there ISK for plex to play the game.
how mutch more?
one broker was comenting that they alone(and there is a hell of a lot more than one of thies outfits out there) move per 10-20,000 USD per day in EVE.
lets assume hes totaly full of crap for a second and assme its realy 3500 a day (and again realise that this was ONE broker, there are literaly dozens of them for all of the mmos out there all over the place and they each cover multiple mmos just keep any so called crack down from realy hurting them)
thats another 200 a day from that one outfit alone on top of the ever growing pile thats not being fed by ingame exchanges to people who are useing plex to play. (hell a lot of the plex were being bought was by the exact same farming outfits that CCP suposedly wants to crack down thus which is reflected in the double whamy of caped real plex demand and growing stockpile on the supply side that you see right now)
Hell I would not be the least bit surprised after they put out the Plex for pass promo a while back if they did not start puting out a "Plex for IGFeaturs/stuff" promo next.
Otherwise, if Plex is somehow going to magicaly solve even a FRACTION of the RMT trade problem even in part then they need to buypass the player base on a large scale and just start handing out ISK for plex ingame.
Lets face it, they have obviously come to the conclusion that they have a very REAL problem with the plex suply hyperinflating if they put the effort into creating that screwball Plex4Pass promo.
*.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.* *.*
Stop freaking worrying about why things the developerd did 5 years and more ago no longer make sence. |
Steve Thomas
|
Posted - 2009.08.17 18:56:00 -
[66]
Edited by: Steve Thomas on 17/08/2009 18:58:35
Edited by: Steve Thomas on 17/08/2009 18:56:04
and no im not talking about This guy or This charming couple compared to the RMT sellers I have no issue with anyone insain enough to multi box any game anymore.
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Stop freaking worrying about why things the developerd did 5 years and more ago no longer make sence. |
Kerfira
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Posted - 2009.08.17 20:45:00 -
[67]
Edited by: Kerfira on 17/08/2009 20:46:08
Originally by: Steve Thomas
-thoughless drivel
What was your point? (apart from showing you know how to call people names)...
The intelligent content of a post is always inversely proportional to the amount of swearing and name-calling. In this case, your post have an intelligent content value of exactly.... (wait for it...): ZERO!
People WILL find a way to trade RL money for in-game money. CCP found a way to turn this inevitable fact into an income source, and at the same time squash the negative effects on the game from excessive farming. Brilliantly done!
...(you really aren't very good at this....)
Originally by: CCP Wrangler
EVE isn't designed to just look like a cold, dark and harsh world, it's designed to be a cold, dark and harsh world.
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Steve Thomas
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Posted - 2009.08.17 23:47:00 -
[68]
Edited by: Steve Thomas on 17/08/2009 23:50:04
Ohh nice flamebating.
As far as I am concerned your efforts to defend the practice simply shows that your one of the people who participate in RMT transaction.
The fact remains that what you see as a positive and good thing for the game.It is not.
Even the Developers have said that ANY RMT exchange, be it GTCs/plex or ISK farmed for cash is not a good thing and that they allow it in the form of Plex because if they can keep it to (at the time) GTC exchanges the impact be so trival it would not be noticable. (literaly buy a sub and a GTC sell the GTC to get a wad of cash to start up with and off you go)
As far as I am concerned anyone who pays to get ISK be it "legal" Plex or non legal RMT to a Isk Farmer are gaming the system for there advantage and are defacto no diferent from for example the people who insist that the Records from the "Steroid Era" of baseball should be treated as if they were totaly legit because the use of Roids and PEDs was so pervasive that it bascialy was self correcting.
It is simply a (by and large Failed) money grab by CCP that forces some of its player base to grind more (for CCP to make money of the plex they got) so that they can play the game and turns EVE online into a micro transation game that rewards thoes who are willing to pay CCP extra over thoes who dont.
It never has been and never by any remote strech of the imagingation will be a solution to the problem unless CCP goes in and starts deliberatly buying up Plex and GTC in game at a price that outpays the ISK farmers so that the ISK farmers end up giving up and going away and all of the players who want to buy ISK with Cash start going to CCPs page to do so.
But yet you keep persisting in the "Plex is gooooood" and "Plex is the cure to RMT" notion.
Tell me how good is it when the only way for Plex to even remolty "cure" the RMT problem is for CCP to literaly Flood the game with ISK?(right now I would say that "PLEX" exchanges account for less than 10% of the tota RMT trade, and even at that part of the PLEX trade went to the very ISK farming ops who used them to help hide who exactly they were because they did not want to leave a money trail)
(oh Paradox Detected! Good Plex WAS Being used by the ISK farmers and brokers to help sheild there operations from CCP! I guess thoes were the Bad PLEX who hung out in Rens so thoes aparently do not count)
Lets be honest here. CCP has been Sporadic AT BEST when it comes to cracking down on the RMT trade and has always been way behind the curve when it comes to what is going on with them.
the fact that CCP has decided to toot there own horn by showing off the results of one of the few credible banhamer attacks that most people I know of who have played prior to when I started playing (Back in 2004) to can recall. and even then Every such event was Triggered by one of its players commiting an ingame act of fraud who decided to cash out or by Exploiting the rules so blatantly that they had no choice but to step in and crack down(the pos exploit a while back) .
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Nyota Sol
Center for Advanced Studies
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Posted - 2009.08.18 11:35:00 -
[69]
Great blog post, thank you.
We don't get to see enough of this type of data (i.e. supply-side) and so it's very welcome. That being said, this opens up a can of worms for us players to consider.
Originally by: Gnulpie
Good reading!
One question remains though, how do you explain the drastic increase of stocked up PLEX? The amount increased almost by 100% in just 2 months. At the same time, the usage of PLEX to extend accounts even dropped slightly.
At the same time the price of the PLEX drastically dropped by almost 25% - yet still the usage to extend the accounts didn't rise during that time.
Any consistent explanations for that?
This is not explained by demand side arguments such as "fanfest" and other such popular types of market explanations we hear from Eve players. As you note, there is no indication of a spike in demand. It's a supply-side thing mixed with speculation.
Look at the first chart again http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/devblog/img/Plex/Plex_blog1.gif
Yellow Line: This "stockpile" line indicates a heavy stockpile of plex built up in april and then tightened up going into May. Several thousand plex were soaked up at the start of May.
As others have observed, there was some market manipulation going on and this sparked dramatic speculation. I watched several regions during the >400m period, and there was some very large scale market manipulation going on for sure (over many regions and involving extremely large amounts of money, with prices being simultaneously jacked up with scattered orders).
Prices settled back down but the nature of the plex market changed forever.
Red/Blue Lines: Notice that at the start of May there was briefly a time when more PLEX were being used than were being bought. Combined with the stock piles diminishing at the same time, prices started to shift. Plex use flatlined and even sank in june (something CCP is likely curious about).
What i think is the underlying and shocking story in this is that plex were NOT being bought significantly as purely trading commodities. There had been several waves of massive plex creation but it wasnt until the price bubble that we saw the current phenomenon really take off. It seems everybody and their little sister were now buying plex as raw investments. Maybe they'd use them. Maybe not.
Plex-used-per-day (red) has flattened off at about 800 per day. Given Eve's total subscriber base, I am not sure it will ever get higher than that without prices falling to the 200-250m range (and more accounts).
Meanwhile, plex creation (blue) has been steadily increasing since June, yet prices have not truly reflected that. Even though the stockpiles of total plex have DOUBLED in 2 months (16,000), we see that plex prices continue to hold at 290-300m. This is like the china trade imbalance and usa treasuries...
Questions?
How will the owners of these 16,000 plex behave when the market gets volatile?
Did most of those current plex collecting dust get bought by the current owners with real money? Or were these plex bought off the market with ISK as investments? What portion of these 16,000 are being held with the intention of usage for game-time? What portion of these are held by the original creators, who are looking to cash them in for ISK at a "good price"?
Within this line of questioning is the basic notion that many, many of these plex could get dumped at prices well below 300m.
It's my belief that those who bought these 16,000 plex with ISK will hold out for >300m prices for as long as they can. Those who created them with real cash may be tempted to cash out for as low as 250m.
We could see a massive sell-off, but i strongly believe plex would stabilize at 250m in a worst case scenario. If prices plummeted with extensive volatility, I think a large number of new plex USERS would step in at prices in the 200-250m range.
In other words, this is very interesting. 
CAS 101
Eve Musings
Lost in Space: Apocrypha Exploration |
Flashmala
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Posted - 2009.08.29 00:09:00 -
[70]
On paper, a good idea. As far as being able to actually buy PLEX, I've been trying for 2 days, my credit card is now flagged as fraudulent, and no response from customer support. Stuff like this that should be simple just *isses me off like you can't imagine.
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Lucia Ferragano
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Posted - 2009.09.01 02:43:00 -
[71]
I btw had an idea about iskies spam. How about allowing people to just shoot on sight anyone reported to sell ISKies? This would in effect make spammer chasing fun!
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PJRiddick
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Posted - 2009.09.01 12:39:00 -
[72]
Ive bought PLEX cards two times now, I have found the easiest way to do it is to use your paypal account. Ive not yet had any problem with that and as far as i am conserned i have never been able to use a credit card yet, they are just not accepted for some reason. That is why i went to the paypal, i spose they assume that paypal has already done all the security checks and assume the responsability for payment.
Its the way to go peeps.
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