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Email today:



That's it. No dancing around what they're doing. No pretending PLEX is for game time. Get your EVE gold here!

Pretty bold RMT ad considering their stated stand on the practice.

Mr Epeen

Email today:



That's it. No dancing around what they're doing. No pretending PLEX is for game time. Get your EVE gold here!

Pretty bold RMT ad considering their stated stand on the practice.

Mr Epeen

I mean that's kinda the whole point of PLEX... if you wanted gametime you could have just bought that at a lower rate.

(1)No pretending PLEX is for game time.
(2)Pretty bold RMT ad considering their stated stand on the practice.

That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller. I'd have to wait for some guy to have his couple of hundred dollar PLEX purchase go through so he could buy the character I was selling. So much for the struggle in this harsh universe.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

Mr Epeen

I've been against PLEX as implemented since the beginning.

For one reason. That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game. Lose a ship? No problem, just buy some ISK and replace it.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller. I'd have to wait for some guy to have his couple of hundred dollar PLEX purchase go through so he could buy the character I was selling. So much for the struggle in this harsh universe.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

Mr Epeen

It was the only solution. The mistake you are making here is that you are looking at it as something you don't like rather than accepting it as a necessary evil. I shudder to think of how much time and energy and money CCP would have had to waste combatting isk farmers were it not for plex, because if we know anything from the history of this game and others, people are going to buy in game money some way no matter what you do.

Also PLEX doesn't have anything with the harshness of EVE, the same people who will plex themselves out of a loss probably would have bought isk from a gold seller type for the same reason, the difference is that as it is now at least the money goes to CCP.

On top of that you are ignoring the benefits of plex for other players. PLEX gave PVE players something real and meaningful to shoot for, something to really trade with PVP jocks. If not for PLEX I'd probably have trillions of isk if I hadn't stopped playing because just making isk for the sake of it isn't fun, but knowing that what I was doing would also let me use some of it to buy PLEX to keep 60 bucks in my pocket every month , that meant something (not much, but something).

I like plex, I think it was an elegant solution to a problem and for the most part it's added something really cool to the game. I don't know for other people but i can tell you that for myself I doubt I'd have played EVE this long without plex, not because of the money (I don't spend the 60 bucks a month I set aside for EVE until I've made the isk to pay for game time, It's like i use CCPs accounting practice in real life) but because it provided another goal to shoot for. A goal that delivers.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

Mr Epeen

Inb4 some serious spin-doctoring about why this is not a blantant pay2win ad and absolutely no problem.

I've been against PLEX as implemented since the beginning.

For one reason. That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game. Lose a ship? No problem, just buy some ISK and replace it.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller. I'd have to wait for some guy to have his couple of hundred dollar PLEX purchase go through so he could buy the character I was selling. So much for the struggle in this harsh universe.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

Mr Epeen

While I'm with you here, I don't want to complain too much either. CCP did a pretty good job at converting all those aurum gifts they gave us over the years since incarna. I don't buy stuff on the store, so it was all still there and is now easily used as a decent chunk of either gametime or isk.

This'll blow your mind: I don't care.
And I'm certain a lot of other players don't care either.

BTW you reminded me of Gevlon with your post.

From the looks of it CCP isn't finished yet. What are they working on currently? Any ideas? All those pushes to more monetization came out of the blue and even the CSM was never informed beforehand.

Let's talk in a year or two again if we are both still around.

I've been against PLEX as implemented since the beginning.

For one reason. That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game. Lose a ship? No problem, just buy some ISK and replace it.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller. I'd have to wait for some guy to have his couple of hundred dollar PLEX purchase go through so he could buy the character I was selling. So much for the struggle in this harsh universe.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

Mr Epeen

Email today:



That's it. No dancing around what they're doing. No pretending PLEX is for game time. Get your EVE gold here!

Pretty bold RMT ad considering their stated stand on the practice.

Mr Epeen

they were looking for a vp of microtransactions for a while and hired some guy from EA

I've been against PLEX as implemented since the beginning.

For one reason. That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game. Lose a ship? No problem, just buy some ISK and replace it.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller.

So let me get this straight, just so I am totally clear, PLEX is bad because it negates the harshness in the game in relation to consequences and yet you ... are a character seller.

So if:

CCP sells Plex so a player can shortcut flying a new ship = bad
Mr Epeen sells a character so someone can shortcut to flying a new ship = good

So let me get this straight. Just so I'm totally clear.

You like to selectively quote because if you showed the whole thing people would see the idiocy of what you are saying.

Mr Epeen

I've been against PLEX as implemented since the beginning.

For one reason. That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game. Lose a ship? No problem, just buy some ISK and replace it.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller. I'd have to wait for some guy to have his couple of hundred dollar PLEX purchase go through so he could buy the character I was selling. So much for the struggle in this harsh universe.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

So let me get this straight. Just so I'm totally clear.

You like to selectively quote because if you showed the whole thing people would see the idiocy of what you are saying.

Mr Epeen

So let me get this straight. Just so I'm totally clear.

You like to selectively quote because if you showed the whole thing people would see the idiocy of what you are saying.

Mr Epeen

From the looks of it CCP isn't finished yet. What are they working on currently? Any ideas? All those pushes to more monetization came out of the blue and even the CSM was never informed beforehand.

Let's talk in a year or two again if we are both still around.

No...I think she pretty much captured the point. This is a perfect example of the adage "Where you stand is based on where you sit." In your view, PLEX negates the harshness of the game, but character sales don't...because you're a character seller.

mr epeen you used to seem a lot smarter
but i figured it out
you deleted your sig
why did you do that?
I used to enjoy reading how typing u saved a whole two seconds
i wasted two seconds every time i read it

So there you go. Like every other person playing, I'll take advantage of a **** poor mechanic. In real life I'll stick to my principles occasionally, but never in a video game. That doesn't mean I won't be vocal about my disdain for the very mechanic that has helped make me rich.

I didn't delete it. One day I logged in and it was gone.

So it goes. vOv

Mr Epeen

I'll start getting concerned when Eve starts getting like this.

If you are feeling dedicated enough, go back, way back, and look at all the posts I made that characters should be bound to the acct that created them and be untradeable. And yes, I was a character trader when I said that. Over and over.

But...much like even though I think lottos are a governmental tax on the stupid, if someone gifted me a winning ticket I'd be first in line to cash it. By the same token, CCP introducing RMT to buy characters is handing me a winning ticket. I'd be a fool not to take advantage of it.

So there you go. Like every other person playing, I'll take advantage of a **** poor mechanic. In real life I'll stick to my principles occasionally, but never in a video game. That doesn't mean I won't be vocal about my disdain for the very mechanic that has helped make me rich.

Mr Epeen

Nobody gifted you characters to sell. You used your RL money to train them up in terms of SP then you cashed them in for ISK. That isn't RMT how precisely? And here are a couple of other points, you were facilitating the softening of the game by making it easier for people who needed a specific type of character quickly vs. telling them to HTFU and go train what they needed. Further, character trading is about as passive an income stream as one can have. These are things many people tend to look down their noses at (personally I don't mind).

And if you aren't going to stick to your principles why are you so upset when CCP does not stick to your principles?

How would you know what the CSM was informed of? Are you in it?

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

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

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

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

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

Don't worry then. 2016 was the best year ever for CCP financially, and it can only get better with the new unified PLEX system they just introduced. Clearly CCP has solved the monetization of Eve Online and they can get put that team back onto adding fixing or adding to the game itself. Eve Updates is bare, and at FanFest CCP Seagull all but said they were nowhere close to completing the grand vision of her roadmap for Eve online.

They could do that and provide some real reasons for players to remain interested, or become interested in the game, or, they could spend more time on coming up with more ways to make Eve look more like an online casino and squeeze a few more pennies out of the dwindling player base. I guess only time will tell.

There is a really big expansion in the works

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

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

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

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

I've been against PLEX as implemented since the beginning.

For one reason. That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game. Lose a ship? No problem, just buy some ISK and replace it.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller. I'd have to wait for some guy to have his couple of hundred dollar PLEX purchase go through so he could buy the character I was selling. So much for the struggle in this harsh universe.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

Mr Epeen

Inb4 some serious spin-doctoring about why this is not a blantant pay2win ad and absolutely no problem.

This isn't pay to win.

You have to win with what you buy to make it pay to win. 99% of the people buying PLEX for ships lose them almost instantly.

This isn't pay to win.

You have to win with what you buy to make it pay to win. 99% of the people buying PLEX for ships lose them almost instantly.

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

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

I've been against PLEX as implemented since the beginning.

For one reason. That was the day "cold " and "harsh" ceased to have any meaning when describing the game. Lose a ship? No problem, just buy some ISK and replace it.

It was especially noticeable as a character seller. I'd have to wait for some guy to have his couple of hundred dollar PLEX purchase go through so he could buy the character I was selling. So much for the struggle in this harsh universe.

As for justifying corporate RMT as a solution to unofficial RMT...IT'S STILL RMT! It's completely the wrong solution.

Mr Epeen

I'll start getting concerned when Eve starts getting like this.

Uhh I've seen people get carriers and supers recently because they broke out the CC (FYI this is nothing totally new) but with quickly injected characters that they decided to skimp out on very important skills and need to get bailed out of bad situations they get themselves into.

First time carrier pilot because they heard it had dank wallet ticks. "How do you jump?" "I can't fit a jump portal array." ...My fit is 10 jumps away I'll just take gates.
I want a super, a cyno isn't a requirement to fly it so no point in injecting. Help! I'm tackled! Someone light a cyno for me. Or I'm not a combat super I don't need a combat refit. I'll never need that passive refit so I won't train the compensation skills either that will save me a few hundred dollars in injectors and modules.
Thankfully I haven't seen a full CC warrior titan yet to have any stories, but I'm sure they exist.

EVE has never been in this situation before to this extent. It's definitely not pay to win, but it is pay to be ******** and make your corps/alliances look bad. That is what pisses some vets off - their impatience and unwillingness to learn the most basic mechanics before getting into them.

@Zarek Kree - for the record I'm not fighting for or against injectors. But... I really hope you can see the difference between injecting into a VNI vs a carrier vs a super. If nothing else the several hundred dollars difference in that price tag if you CC warrior it, as well as the base knowledge expected of those flying these hulls. And how it looks upon the corp/alliance when those same people turn around and lose it due to their impatience and ignorance.

@Zarek Kree - for the record I'm not fighting for or against injectors. But... I really hope you can see the difference between injecting into a VNI vs a carrier vs a super. If nothing else the several hundred dollars difference in that price tag if you CC warrior it, as well as the base knowledge expected of those flying these hulls. And how it looks upon the corp/alliance when those same people turn around and lose it due to their impatience and ignorance.

Doesn't that actually reinforce EVE as harsh though?

A guy blows hundreds of dollars and helps to pad my killboards. Thanks buddy!

Exactly. When the day comes that I can pay 5 bucks to make my Ishtar launch 10 drones instead of 5 or directl make a 5% bonus to something 10 %, that will be when the line is crossed.

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

And yet, playing 15-30 minutes 5 days a week for a few months meant I end up with more resources than I know what to do with in that game.
As something to waste time on my breaks at work, it was ideal. But now I'm able to get hold of newspapers again, my interest waned. Still spent no real money on it, still nothing in it you can't get from playing.

ISK is not straight 'Pay to win" but having more of it gives pretty nice advantage.

And without plex, the only people who would have that advantage would be those who played longer. Plex helps level the playing field, and while this isn't all that important to me, it is important to many players 'obsessed' with being able to 'catch up' in an MMO.

Which is why plex is a necessary evil in so many ways, The people who complain about plex and pay to win do so from the comfort of a virtual game world that might not exist were it not for plex, or would exist but be WAY crappier with an economy skewed and screwed by isk sellers too numerous for even CCP to deal with.

[snipping; too many quotes]

Oh if you replace the example you made with something that is actually possible you can do that. You can pay to launch more drones by purchasing ISK for skill injectors instead of waiting for the small trickle of SP you get normally. This resembles a typical paywall found in many other pay2win games.

Let me address you and also Teckos here and clarify my position on this.

First of all, the term pay2win is used to describe a game where you can purchase game advancement, non-vanity items and lower timers with RL money instead of having to play the game for it. It does not mean "winning" in the literal sense, since in every game you also need player skill and such a thing can not be sold, and that is just true for every game. So pretending a game is not pay2win because they don't sell player skill (because it is not possible) is a bit disingenuous, since that would be true for all games anyway.

I know very well that PLEX was introduced to battle illegal RMT, but while it technically always resembled pay2win, it was the lesser of two evils and advertised as simple player2player transactions of ISK for game time.

But they recently started to heavily expand on it. And while you always had the knowledge somewhere back in your head that you could refill your space pockets with your RL money, it wasn't all that visible and dominating the game experience like it is today. There are literally ads to purchase advancements like skill injectors and ISK or access to more stuff and faster training time (Omega) at every corner now.

Now I know that most of this was possible for years. That does not mean I was in favour of it. As I said it was the lesser evil for a specific purpose. What I have a serious problem with is that they turn EVE from a game which was a immersive experience where the purpose was to flourish and make your way in this harsh universe to a something that looks more and more like a store front with small ads and reminders which nag you to purchase more stuff with RL money.

The page linked in the OP is the perfect example for this and the reactions and reciting of fallacies like "pay2win is only a given when you literally win" shows how blind people are to this tremendous change in how EVE is advertised.

It is true that EVE has some game mechanics which dwarf the advantages of stuff you can just purchase with RL money. However, think about how this game looks to you if you where new to the game and did not even know that. I bet if you would discover EVE at this time and day you would be appalled, since what it communicates is "paywalls everywhere".

This is how it looks now:
- Want to stop the endless and slow grind to get that new shiny ship? => give money.
- Want to stop the endless waiting for a skill with that awfully slow SP trickle? => give money
- Want to access more ships and skills to even be competitive? => give money
- Oh you purchased SP for a skill with RL money which was an OMEGA skill and now you are alpha again? => give more money to access the skill you purchased - every - month!

Now before you post "but this was possible before!!" think for a moment! Would you play a game where the above was your first impression if you don't have an investment already which makes you come here and defend it? Why isn't the "free2play" push attracting new players? Did you take a look at the PCU? It is back to where it was before they changed it and I am really not surprised, I would not start to play EVE if what I would encounter is the above.

And without plex, the only people who would have that advantage would be those who played longer. Plex helps level the playing field, and while this isn't all that important to me, it is important to many players 'obsessed' with being able to 'catch up' in an MMO.

Which is why plex is a necessary evil in so many ways, The people who complain about plex and pay to win do so from the comfort of a virtual game world that might not exist were it not for plex, or would exist but be WAY crappier with an economy skewed and screwed by isk sellers too numerous for even CCP to deal with.

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

Some advantage? No...total advantage.

The corp that spent a year mining ore and building a fleet goes up against a corp that crowd funded their members for PLEX enough to easily outgun and unendingly replace ships as they're lost. Alliance wars are a numbers game needing only one or two skilled players per fleet. The guys with the money have the numbers, so they win.

Not pay to win in the traditional MMO meaning. But pay to win, nonetheless.

Mr Epeen

Teckos, you must have been Prom king. Because you can dance like a mother*******.

Mr Epeen