That's not a bad thing. It's not like they're bringing any RL cash to the game. Or using up any plex

Not emptyquoting for emphasis. The URL seems to be a pretty good way for getting the name out, but using that as a guise to nuke the PLEX-for-PLEX under the banner of "we're sure you understand" is simply not putting out enough effort to ~really~ gain understanding.

[U still get the plex but only if your "friend" pays with cash.

I wonder what this will open up hehe

This is a pretty cool change though. Will this at all affect the affiliate program?

/c

everybody needs some buddy :)
so if i invite 12, then i'll play for free for a year? :)

I do not agree with this at all.

Plex for Plex should be an option.

I have made 8 alts using Plex for Plex and to not have to pay for them for then the first few months is a good way for me to have alts.

I guess no more alts for anyone and no more friend invites.

CCP, you don't have to change things like this. Please change it back.

This is and interesting change. I don't really feel it's good or bad, just a different way of doing things. I can see how this can be good for players who just want to put an advertisement up and get people in to the game. The free game time will be good for them. The removal of PLEX-for-PLEX is understandable with this a single unlimited link (and also if CCP wanted to nerf 51 day accounts ) , but I'm not sure if it's the best course of action for all.

I say that because I have a fan site. Having a image link where people who are interested in Eve and want to try it is great. I don't have to worry about individual links and can just set it up and not worry about maintenance and other annoying crap. The flip side is, as a fan site I have no need for free monthly game time for the account that link will be linked to. That's already one of the benefits for being a fan site. The Plex was a great option for fan sites because they can used as prizes for events and contests I hold. While there is certainly a benefit for CCP and new players, the benefits for my listeners and I have been removed.

In retrospect of typing this post I suppose I could route the link through one of my alts, but they're pretty much taken care of as well. I'd rather have a way to convert that time in to something else that would benefit my fan site. That was one of the great things about PLEX-for-PLEX (and the 51day alts).

I hope the community team will takes the time to revisit this change and provide other benefits for fan sites.

While I agree that the fansites could use some more love in this regard, what about the affiliate program? Would it work for you the way it is currently set up?

In retrospect of typing this post I suppose I could route the link through one of my alts, but they're pretty much taken care of as well. I'd rather have a way to convert that time in to something else that would benefit my fan site.

No more /free/ alts.

Otherwise, well, you're paying for them anyway. You just get 'free' time on your main account (on the last alt account, depending on how you deal with them)

Blah blah blah

This is the obvious idea for fansites, and exactly what I will do with mine, that way the benefits can still be shared.
Previously I've always split the isk of a buddy reward with the new buddy.

And now that I have read the Affiliate Program information I have more things to post.

First, this looks absolutely great. The payouts are incredibly generous and the commissions are way more than what most Time Code Affiliate Program's pay out. The brackets seem a little unreasonable when coming from the perspective of small website sites, but it's a 100% payout with a starting payout of 50% which is just stupid to argue over for reasons already mentioned.

Secondly, please consider a non-cash option. For US residents the site owners would have to put in W2s and pay taxes on our revenues. Cash affiliate programs can also get us in to copy right trouble depending on how their fan site is setup; if we use Creative Commons material, music rights etc. The legal ramifications cash incentives produce may cause some fan sites to not to participate in the program. A non-cash payment option would be nice and it allows CCP to keep those revenues so we can have more iteration, ships and other cool non-jesus features.

Third, please make the Affliate link a little more visable on that page. I hope CCP will link it on the Fan Site pages of the Community and Evelopedia sites.

Lastly, with the above comments in mind, CCP did well by adding PayPal as a payment provided. PayPal does create tax forms for those in the US and it such an easy handling method when it comes to things like this.

So let me get this straight? They are removing my reward of a plex for inviting a friend (or my self)?

DEATH TO ALL PONIES

as for no more plexes from this program, I find that reasonable, because with url based recruitment it could cause some unbalanced plex concentrations.

awww its a shame i have gotten 3 of my months of gameplay from buddies i invited and then activated with plex... but guess is for the best...

That still works. They can use a PLEX as long as you request 30 days of game time as the reward. Its just PLEX for PLEX that is gone.

I'm one of the Plex for Plex lovers, and I'm going to miss this option.

Part of what it makes it useful is that 51 days free means it provides enough time to actually become invested in the game. For 14 day and 21 day trials, esp weekend warrior types, you've barely gotten to scratch the surface of EVE before you have to make a decision to fork over cash. With a learning curve far beyond other MMOs, this creates a problem for the potential player. If they're not OCD types like us, complexity for short play periods translates to deciding not activate the new subscription. "It's cool, but it's too time consuming to pay to learn." The 51 days gets more players over that hump. Seven weekends is enough time to follow through on researching and learning basic game mechanics (remember going to look up ONE thing and then realizing 2 hours had passed?). More importantly, 51 days is long enough to train a more substantial character that can really start to do the cool stuff. That gives noobs a taste of the good stuff just before time's up.

If this game were less complex and difficult, 2 or 4 weekends or 8 to 10 play sessions might be enough to pull people in, but that's barely enough time to figure out what the hell is going on here in EVE.

For me personally, they obviously make excellent short term, low skill alts. There's a limit to my ability to pay for alts for temporary gaming goals or to test out professions I haven't tried before. But there's also a limit to how many clients I can run (not many) at one time, so personally it's not like I have had hundreds of alts or anything crazy. It was nice to be able to buy my plex to reup this account and use it to start a 51 day account on which I could train any skill without the trial limitation or to train up an alt for sale so that I can buy more PLEX. Thinking about it for a minute, that's probably the primary benefit over me using a standard trial alt. It's certainly not a convenience I'm going to pay for though, so you won't be making any more money off me than before.

Honestly, I'm not sure in what way the Plex for Plex has been/could be abused other than alt hordes, which can be created anyway with regular trials. The PLEX get bought off the market, end up with player. You give us the first month, you get all the others. They'll still get sold onto the market or burned in other ways. I'm not sure I see the problem.

BTW is it that its still just game time or plex rewards for now? or is there some other reward i'm missing? I can't seem to find anything.

Game time as a reward, even if the buddy account is extended via PLEX, is still available. This means you can invite one buddy (who then subscribes, using a PLEX you provide) a month and neither him or you have to spend money. So that 51 days is still there, just only for one buddy a month.

Edit, well you can do more than one a month, but you would be buying more than one PLEX a month and accumulating time on your account faster than you are using it.

Also, if you have 3 accounts then its 3 a month without accumulating extra time.

I still don't see what problem this change is solving. Could some more scam-savvy person explain it?

Ponies.

This is the best dev blog ever.

If you are currently using PLEXes to pay for your gametime, you can still get "free" (as in no additional cost incurred) 51 day alts.

1) Create an alt.
2) Subscribe alt with PLEX.
3) Redeem gametime on your main.

Net result is one PLEX spent, one month of gametime gained on main, and 51 days gained on alt.


tl;dr: screwing people who pay CCP real money out of free alts.


(Just kidding actually - well, a little. I always thought that the idea of a free 51 day alt was a little silly. But as my post shows, if getting rid of it was your intention, it's not happening.)

Not emptyquoting for emphasis. The URL seems to be a pretty good way for getting the name out, but using that as a guise to nuke the PLEX-for-PLEX under the banner of "we're sure you understand" is simply not putting out enough effort to ~really~ gain understanding.

Another slightly buddy program related thing:
The community website (community.eveonline.com) doesn't have a proper link to Account Management anymore. AFAICS the only thing linking there is a litte picture that says "Upgrade trial to paid subscription". I'd like to have a link either in the support menu or get that dropdown menu on the top of the page back.

No, they are not trying to get rid of 51 day alts, or getting your real life friends 51 days. It seems to me that they are trying to reduce alt spam. There are so many ways to abuse the plex-plex system that I'm amazed they it took so long to take it out. With one plex, a person can create as many alts as they want, and play them for 51 days. I think they chose the best way to get rid of this possible type of abuse (not creating long term alts, but the disposable 51 day ones).

No one has yet explained what the abuse is. So what if there are tons of alts out there? It's not like it uses any real amount of resources, and in any event, if they were other humans, not alts, you'd still be using the same resources. So, again, what exactly is the abuse going on? I can build an alt army out of 21 day trials just as easily as 51 day ones. That simply can't be the issue. So what is the issue? What's the problem being solved?

Getting that fixed ASAP!

Currently the only rewards available through the program are 30 days of game time or a PLEX item. We are looking at how the rewards selection might be broadened as part of the ongoing development of the Buddy Program.

Oh you people.

While the 'plex rewarded for plexing a buddy invite' part seems true, remember, real money was paid to get that PLEX in the first place.

[...]

Also, sure, they get to play 51 days for free, but then what? They will have invested enough time and resources that they will subscribe in due time. For players with no access to real currency, be it dollars, euros or whatever, 51 days is more than enough time for them to earn ISK to PLEX their accounts - and of course, someone else has paid for that PLEX they are buying, which of course is money that already is in CCP's pocket.

[...]

Last point is, once your free 51 days are up, every single option available to add gametime to said free 51-day account can never be 'free' since you now have to either shell out ISK for a PLEX or pay subscription - and this is revenue for CCP, albeit delayed.

[...]

(...) being able to mass invite people like that may/probably will destabilise the PLEX market. (...) Perhaps something to counteract the inevitable mass increase in supply to the market may be in order?

This way people can still have their cyno, hauler, salvager, miner, scount, Jita market checker, what-ever-alt-character or give their friends a 51 day account to try out EvE. (...) Is this something that will curb the abuse while allowing people the comfort of having a few alts?

Since creating the account costs you nothing, any amount of ISK you can make during these 51 days is pure profit. Thus you can roll as many alts as you want, and collect the money at the end of two months - profit limited only by how many accounts you care to create. Taken to the extreme, a single person could theoretically keep a scout in every system in EVE 24/7 for absolutely free. (Free as in no RL or in-game payment.) It's up to CCP to determine to which extent this has actually been abused.

How about limiting the number of PLEX-for-PLEX invites to the age of your account?
If your account is 1 year old, you have 1 PLEX-for-PLEX buddy invite per month.
If your account is 2 years old, you have 2 PLEX-for-PLEX buddy invite per month.
If your account is 3 years old, you have 3 PLEX-for-PLEX buddy invite per month.

I suspect that the main reason has something to do with RMT. If I had to guess, it probably makes botting a whole lot easier.

-WHAT POSSIBLE GAIN DO I GET NOW FOR INVITING PEOPLE

-WHY SHOULD I GO THOUGH THE TROUBLE OF ADVERTISING TO ALL MY FRIEND ABOUT THIS GAME
AND ACTIVELY TRYING TO GET PEOPLE INTERESTED

-DOES CCP NEED US OR DO WE NEED ccp

It does not take someone with superior intellect to see what CCPs true goal is they feel they are too large to rely on the buddy program this mass invite thing is just an excuse to stop paying out rewards for successful upgraded accounts

The buddy system has been a great success
Yeah, buddy!

Seems sort of strange, that if I invite a friend to the game and send him a bil for a plex and ships, I dont get any game time in return.

Not emptyquoting for emphasis. The URL seems to be a pretty good way for getting the name out, but using that as a guise to nuke the PLEX-for-PLEX under the banner of "we're sure you understand" is simply not putting out enough effort to ~really~ gain understanding.