Over the years, the price of PLEX has been rising, and rising, and rising. Traders and people who buy PLEX with real cash to sell for ISK love this. The rising prices of PLEX make these kind of people happy, which is great. On the other hand, you have a large group of players that play the game by PLEXing their account. The rising prices of PLEX hurt these players. These players are earning the same amount of ISK they were a year ago, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. The price of PLEX is rising in such a way that it makes it hard for "PLEXing" players to keep going. Their in-game income can't keep up with the rising price of PLEX. Most of you would say "HTFU. It only takes a few extra hours of farming." Those few extra hours of farming are hours that many players don't have due to real life responsibilities, such as raising children, working a job, attending school, etc. Since these players can't afford to spend a few extra hours farming ISK, they end up going inactive, quiting the game, unsubbing, etc. A player base that leaves the game harms the game.

Sooner or later, PLEX will need to change. With the introduction to more NES items, the price of PLEX will continue to skyrocket (traders rejoice). As time goes by, PLEX continues to take on many new roles and can be used for many more things. As it is now, PLEX is currently used for:

Account time: One PLEX is equal to 30 days of game time which can be added to your account by using the PLEX directly from your in-game inventory.
Multiple character training: Activate 30 days of passive skill gain on additional characters on your account with PLEX.
Character transfer: Transferring characters between two accounts can be paid for with PLEX.
Character re-sculpt: Customize and recreate your characterGÇÖs facial appearance.
Convert to AURUM: PLEX can be exchanged for AURUM, the currency used in the New Eden Store where unique fashion accessories and cosmetic ship customizations are sold.

What I'm proposing is to break these services up. Many of these services don't need to be tied to PLEX. To be more specific, I propose this:

- Keep account time tied to PLEX.
- Keep character transferring tied to PLEX.
- Remove Multiple character training, character re-sculpts, & aurum conversion from PLEX. These removed items would, instead, be available to purchase with real cash from CCP, just like PLEX is now. Aurum tokens, multiple character training certificates, & character re-sculpt certificates could be items bought with real money from CCP and can be traded in-game for ISK, just like PLEX.

Why? These changes would bring the price of PLEX back down to viable and reasonable costs (makes the quality of life much easier for a large number of players). In terms of income for CCP, this could actually be good for them. Allow me to give several examples as to why this could be.

Example one:
I'm a customer that is interested in buying items off the NES store. Under the current structure, to buy items off the NES store, I would need to buy a PLEX and convert that PLEX to aurum (iirc, you get ~4k). Let's say I want to buy a few ship skins and clothing items for a total of 1.2k aurum. This means I have another 2.8k aurum sitting in my wallet, doing nothing. I may never even use that aurum. Although the aurum is still there in my wallet, I spent $20 on items that, if you were to convert the aurum amount spent into real life currency, only added up to maybe $5-6. Sure, I could take that extra aurum, buy some items and sell them on the market for ISK, but there should be a much more effective way to spend money.

Under the new structure, instead of buying a PLEX from CCP to convert into aurum, I could buy an aurum token. There could be aurum token options for 100 aur, 500 aur, 1k aur, 1.5k aur, 2k aur, etc. Now, I could buy 2 100 aur tokens and 1 1k aur token to buy the things I want off the NES store and have nothing left over. I spent less real life cash to buy the items I wanted off the NES store. If I had to buy a PLEX to get the aurum, I know I would have leftover aurum just sitting in my wallet. This could be a reason as to why I don't really want to buy a PLEX for aurum, because I know I'll be wasting a certain amount of cash.

Having more items like aurum tokens available for purchase by CCP also opens up more markets in-game, which open up more trade opportunities.

NOTE: If CCP was to do all this, the real life prices would be adjusted accordingly. PLEX could cost a few dollars less than it does now. This isn't necessarily bad for CCP because there would be aurum tokens , multiple character training certificates, & character re-sculpt certificates they can sell for real cash, all of which would be cheaper than current (real money) PLEX prices.

So, before you guys start flaming, raging, bashing, etc. this idea, let's hear your great idea on how to make PLEX cheaper, more affordable, and more viable option for those players that use it to keep their account subscribed. If things don't change and everything keeps going the way it has been, 1-5 years from now, all the average joe EVE players will have left due to the fact that they can't keep up with in-game PLEX prices. This leaves EVE filled only with the elite and filthy rich players that don't have as many people to play with. EVE needs its middle class players, including the ones that PLEX their accounts. EVE will only die if it loses its player base, and as PLEX prices keep rising, more players leave the game. This needs to change, ASAP.

I have two accounts and I pay the sub fee with real money. I personally don't have an issue with it. I'm just worried about the player base that does have to worry about PLEX prices. I've lost one to many corp mates thanks to the rising price of PLEX. As a CEO, that's the last thing you want to lose, your members. No members, nobody to play the game with.

Then as a CEO you need to find a way to help your members make more ISK so they can afford PLEX. The answer is to make your members richer, not make PLEX cheaper.


KIA

So a few comments on the state of PLEX, Aurum, and services:

1. Aurum can be purchased directly, and always gives you more Aurum/Dollar than buying a PLEX and converting that to Aurum.
2. Aurum packages start at around $5 meaning there are options for people looking to make ISK or supplement their normal ISK income by reselling items from the NES.
3. We do want to remove extraneous services from PLEX and have done so already. Many of the services you listed (multi-character training and character resculpt) are sold in the NES for Aurum, at a rate that is favourable to buy them for Aurum rather than PLEX. Many of these items have also been separated out in the in-game market, meaning you can purchase these services directly from the market for ISK.
4. Globally, there is always more ISK coming in to the game than going out, which means over time inflation will occur, especially in "gold-standard" items such as PLEX which will never really lose their value (i.e they don't get rebalanced or nerfed).
5. When prices do skyrocket for short periods of time, we monitor the subscription rate carefully to see if we need to intervene with a sale of some sort, or let the fluctuation smooth itself out.

Well, the best way to make PLEX more available is to get more people to buy them for cash. The best way to do that is to make their value per dollar higher.

So, the best way to make PLEX more affordable is to raise their ISK price.

4. Why not implement more isk sinks into the game to help combat inflation and drive up the value of 1 ISK? With the removal of clone upgrades to protect SP, we have lost an ISK sink, wouldn't it make sense to replace that with a new isk sink?

5. Sneaky and Clever, i'm glad you're watching out for us.

All in all though, i wouldn't mind removal of converting PLEX to Aurum and adding in an Aurum token.

People fail to realize real world economics hit much harder than in game things.

The blockade of MOST credit cards operators from russia is the MAJOR factor why the PLEX demand skyrocketed.

So go ask Obama and Merkel for a fix, because only they can do it.

We can implement ISK sinks and slow the rise, but it will always go up. I mean it's not like you can go in to debt in EVE (at least through game mechanics), and the vast majority of people are ISK positive.

You could switch the economy to be more based in ressource trading instead of instant ISK.
Then you can manage the total ISK amount with ressource tradeorders.
There is no difference in paying ISK for a material or giving it for killing an npc in terms of ISK creation.

I like the idea of adding more ISK sinks. That would probably help matters.

Concerning my first post, those were just suggestions. Bottom line is I, and I'm sure some other people, are worried about the rising PLEX prices and would like to see something done about them.

@CCP: If PLEX prices keep rising at the rate they are now, where do you see the game going? What do you think the playerbase or gameplay will look like in 1-2 years? Are the rising prices good for EVE, or are they hindering players? What if something was done to bring PLEX prices down? How do you see that effecting the game?

Bottom line is I, and I'm sure some other people, are worried about the rising PLEX prices and would like to see something done about them.

PLEX subbing is intended to be for the filthy (space) rich. It is by no means an entitlement. Just be happy it's not 3b. Yet.

No but there is for the end user. We could technically get all our ISK from NPC buy order of stuff rats dropped all the time while we rat but it's just added tendium for any space that does not have an efficient way to get that loot to the right place to sell it. A lot of people already think null ratting is useless and you want to reduce the liquidity of it's income?

Last I heard they were 6bil each On the Chinese servers. Ours has room to grow.

????
Then they are realy ****** . In the past we made 30mil per hour now you can make 150mil+ per hour if that is not enough they can not be helped.
Yes I want to reduce the liquidity, we had 7years of increasing liquidity and it makes the game more themepark than sandbox.
It's not fun to run sites, there is no multiplayer element to it and it makes no sense from a storyline point of view

Another thing CCP could do: Make supers more useful. Supers have taken a usefulness hit recently with the sov changes, the jump changes, and the upcoming citadels. As a result, fewer players want fewer of them. One way a player would acquire a super is to purchase PLEX from CCP, sell for ISK, buy the super. Now, there is less incentive to do that.

If supers gained more roles, more people would want one (or more), and more PLEX would enter the game to finance their purchase..

So a few comments on the state of PLEX, Aurum, and services:

1. Aurum can be purchased directly, and always gives you more Aurum/Dollar than buying a PLEX and converting that to Aurum.
2. Aurum packages start at around $5 meaning there are options for people looking to make ISK or supplement their normal ISK income by reselling items from the NES.
3. We do want to remove extraneous services from PLEX and have done so already. Many of the services you listed (multi-character training and character resculpt) are sold in the NES for Aurum, at a rate that is favourable to buy them for Aurum rather than PLEX. Many of these items have also been separated out in the in-game market, meaning you can purchase these services directly from the market for ISK.
4. Globally, there is always more ISK coming in to the game than going out, which means over time inflation will occur, especially in "gold-standard" items such as PLEX which will never really lose their value (i.e they don't get rebalanced or nerfed).
5. When prices do skyrocket for short periods of time, we monitor the subscription rate carefully to see if we need to intervene with a sale of some sort, or let the fluctuation smooth itself out.

All in all though, i wouldn't mind removal of converting PLEX to Aurum and adding in an Aurum token.

I wonder how well the SKINs have performed as an ISK sink...

Filthy space rich used to be 10 digits. Now, if you have a wallet with 11 digits you're considered to be on the lower end of filthy rich.

What I do think you should do is add more blue loot kind of mechanics to eve.
You should introduce ways for people to steal from or mess with incursion runners and nullsec farms as it's a much riskless farm where near everything you get goes directly to your wallet.

They aren't an ISK sink. Anyone buying a SKIN for ISK is buying it from another player, who receives the ISK.

Indeed. They sat at a billion when I played there. I think that was about 5 years ago.

And here we are, at a billion on TQ. My heart bleeds.

So a few comments on the state of PLEX, Aurum, and services:

1. Aurum can be purchased directly, and always gives you more Aurum/Dollar than buying a PLEX and converting that to Aurum.
2. Aurum packages start at around $5 meaning there are options for people looking to make ISK or supplement their normal ISK income by reselling items from the NES.
3. We do want to remove extraneous services from PLEX and have done so already. Many of the services you listed (multi-character training and character resculpt) are sold in the NES for Aurum, at a rate that is favourable to buy them for Aurum rather than PLEX. Many of these items have also been separated out in the in-game market, meaning you can purchase these services directly from the market for ISK.
4. Globally, there is always more ISK coming in to the game than going out, which means over time inflation will occur, especially in "gold-standard" items such as PLEX which will never really lose their value (i.e they don't get rebalanced or nerfed).
5. When prices do skyrocket for short periods of time, we monitor the subscription rate carefully to see if we need to intervene with a sale of some sort, or let the fluctuation smooth itself out.

We've seen over the years a fairly consistent percentage of our player base PLEX their accounts. If this percentage begins to decline consistently, and is not being counteracted by an increase in subscriber counts, then I'm sure we would take a look in to the system.
So far, to my knowledge, even with the ruble plummeting recently, the overall subscriber ratio hasn't really been affected. People who couldn't afford to pay subscription began PLEXing their accounts. The same is true in reverse for the PLEX speculation spike that happened late last year. The overall subscriber count wasn't really affected. After the Black Friday PLEX sale PLEX prices hovered steadily around 800m ISK for around 4 months.

Ah... I see, you don't have the data regarding it. Since I can buy a PLEX for ISK then convert that PLEX into Aurum I can sink ISK into SKINs. So it is an ISK sink just as much as PLEXing one's account would be an ISK sink.

(seriously, when you guys were coming up with the name did someone say: "we could call it... ummm or... ummm... oh, Aurum! Lets call it that")


edit: it occurs to me that you might mean ISK sink in terms removing it from the game as opposed to transferring it through through mechanisms such as PLEX sales.

We've seen over the years a fairly consistent percentage of our player base PLEX their accounts. If this percentage begins to decline consistently, and is not being counteracted by an increase in subscriber counts, then I'm sure we would take a look in to the system.
So far, to my knowledge, even with the ruble plummeting recently, the overall subscriber ratio hasn't really been affected. People who couldn't afford to pay subscription began PLEXing their accounts. The same is true in reverse for the PLEX speculation spike that happened late last year. The overall subscriber count wasn't really affected. After the Black Friday PLEX sale PLEX prices hovered steadily around 800m ISK for around 4 months.

- Under the new structure, instead of buying a PLEX from CCP to convert into aurum, I could buy an aurum token.

4. Why not implement more isk sinks into the game to help combat inflation and drive up the value of 1 ISK? With the removal of clone upgrades to protect SP, we have lost an ISK sink, wouldn't it make sense to replace that with a new isk sink?

5. Sneaky and Clever, i'm glad you're watching out for us.

All in all though, i wouldn't mind removal of converting PLEX to Aurum and adding in an Aurum token.

You need a better understanding of macroeconomics before you are ready to make judgements about how something like PLEX affects the playerbase as a whole. The price is controlled by players. I can think of two main possible reasons the price may rise:
1.) the amount of ISK in circulation per player is increasing
2.) purchasing PLEX with ISK is becoming more popular

What I do think you should do is add more blue loot kind of mechanics to eve.
You should introduce ways for people to steal from or mess with incursion runners and nullsec farms as it's a much riskless farm where near everything you get goes directly to your wallet.

They aren't an ISK sink. Anyone buying a SKIN for ISK is buying it from another player, who receives the ISK.

We can implement ISK sinks and slow the rise, but it will always go up. I mean it's not like you can go in to debt in EVE (at least through game mechanics), and the vast majority of people are ISK positive.

I completely agree with this. NPC's should not pay out bounties. Instead, like the Empire Faction NPC's, they should drop tags, which then can be traded or redeemed for ISK. That collection and transportation time sink directly results in a decreased ISK/hour and more risk, which is a good thing.

Oh my, that would increase the importance of tight-nit Incursion fleets that fairly distribute tags at the end of a session, and really slow the isk/hr during all that newly-necessary tag trading. Please, no. RL happens and players come and go from these fleets all the time; automatic isk payment has got to be a major facilitator of casually joining and leaving.

New redemption tags could lead to new highsec gate-camping by Catalyst swarms, performing "taxation duties" around Incursion systems, with renewed interest in looking for blinged battleships (and logi ships: lower EHP,) some potentially carrying a billion worth of these new tags, when they quit for the day and head toward a cash-out station.

Oh my, that would increase the importance of tight-nit Incursion fleets that fairly distribute tags at the end of a session, and really slow the isk/hr during all that newly-necessary tag trading. Please, no. RL happens and players come and go from these fleets all the time; automatic isk payment has got to be a major facilitator of casually joining and leaving.

New redemption tags could lead to new highsec gate-camping by Catalyst swarms, performing "taxation duties" around Incursion systems, with renewed interest in looking for blinged battleships (and logi ships: lower EHP,) some potentially carrying a billion worth of these new tags, when they quit for the day and head toward a cash-out station.

We can implement ISK sinks and slow the rise, but it will always go up. I mean it's not like you can go in to debt in EVE (at least through game mechanics), and the vast majority of people are ISK positive.

Op, I get the impression you are not aware that you can buy Aurum directly from CCP, there is no need to convert PLEX.

The PLEX prize is pushed by players with to much ISK and there are players who have stockpiles of PLEX some of them have 1000-10000.

PLEX is trading commodity and if there is ISK that needs to be invested then PLEX is the way to go. PLEX is the market with biggest volume and the best longterm potential.

Just limit the amount of PLEX per account to 100 and a lot of PLEX willl get into the market.

* add a 30 day expiration timer to PLEX, when the timer reaches 0 it deletes itself (and the client plays a video of Hilmar lighting a cigar with a 20Gé¼ bill)

This. The rich players who hoard 100s or even 1000s of PLEX as gold reserve

so inflation is going to force us to sell game time by the minute?

Why lower plex price is good for the game?
Because people are leaving the game because of it.

So far, to my knowledge, even with the ruble plummeting recently, the overall subscriber ratio hasn't really been affected. People who couldn't afford to pay subscription began PLEXing their accounts. The same is true in reverse for the PLEX speculation spike that happened late last year. The overall subscriber count wasn't really affected. After the Black Friday PLEX sale PLEX prices hovered steadily around 800m ISK for around 4 months.

It would be kind of interesting if someone with 1000+ plex dumped on the Jita market.

People fail to realize real world economics hit much harder than in game things.

The blockade of MOST credit cards operators from russia is the MAJOR factor why the PLEX demand skyrocketed.

So go ask Obama and Merkel for a fix, because only they can do it.

The price of plex shot the moon cause of ISK faucets. Null ratting or hisec incursions/missions, whatever-too many ISK, and for enough players plex got a high priority of the list of things to spend ISK on. The way plex keeps going up in price is going to continue, at least until the bubble pops. It would be kind of interesting if someone with 1000+ plex dumped on the Jita market.

*Simple, make pirate bounties dynamic to plex prices, and or even ore amount spawn. problem solved

*Simple, make pirate bounties dynamic to plex prices, and or even ore amount spawn. problem solved

How would it affect the game if?

PLEX should be sold by a non player corporation in 1.0 systems.

The only giant ISK sink is eve is the destruction of property. Maybe Concord and SOV stuff too but probably no where near as much.

Ugh. Why do people think this? Exploding ships is a huge faucet, not a sink.

If you rat up 200m to buy a ship, insure it, then get it blown up, and get 100m back, the game now has 300m floating around in liquid ISK. Even structures aren't really sinks, as even though they are not insurable, the money doesn't leave the system.

Or just leave it as is and let the market sort itself up or down since PLEXing your account is not a god granted right. Problem solved in a much easyer way.

The New Eden market left unregulated will never sort itself out in so far as PLEXing is concerned because it is driven by foreign currencies that create unlimited demand in game. A way to counter unlimited demand is to have unlimited supply. If PLEX could be purchased from a non player corporation with ISK and with a set "tax" charge of an out of game currency the market will then be able to sort itself out. In other words every time you buy or sell a PLEX you pay CCP a dollar. Then buying and selling of ISK in game would drive CCP's prophets and counter the effect of foreign currencies on the price of PLEX in game.

Limit of plex pr account would go a long way of sorting the plex hoarding market out..

Then make it a sneak update with 15 days notice, will remove alot of isk from the game, and heal the long term economy of eve for some years..

Here's a suggestion, and I'd like to hear CCP's thoughts on this: reduce the cost of character transfers from one plex. It reduces the demand for plex, thus lowering the price. But it also helps the economy of character transferring. As it is now reselling a character costs well over 2b, making it very difficult to build a market there like we do in jita. It also makes it economically infeasible to transfer characters with less than about 5m skills.

You heard it here first folks, removing PLEX from the game will remove ISK from it.

Ah... I see, you don't have the data regarding it. Since I can buy a PLEX for ISK then convert that PLEX into Aurum I can sink ISK into SKINs. So it is an ISK sink just as much as PLEXing one's account would be an ISK sink.

(seriously, when you guys were coming up with the name did someone say: "we could call it... ummm or... ummm... oh, Aurum! Lets call it that")


edit: it occurs to me that you might mean ISK sink in terms removing it from the game as opposed to transferring it through through mechanisms such as PLEX sales.

Limit of plex pr account would go a long way of sorting the plex hoarding market out..

I've never entirely understood; what do you think these people are hoarding plex for?

2) for ISK, to resell when price skyrocket