A new player guide to end is nigh

Communications Center General Discussion
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In case of “Eve will die” situation. Or CCP. Soon. Or not

So, I was a little bit concern about Plex prices. Then about CCP wallet. Then I saw: dead Eve. And then its not. Then I realised, that I wrote a little bit too much to just drop.

Lets start at the begining: at the moment a new guy will stay at alpha status, try to grind for a plex and eventually log off. No income from him for CCP. Couple of years ago a new guy will buy couple of plexes for rl money and try to grind his way up to the plex. its just a part of carebear gameplay. It is always a big part of new player experience - to get plex by yourself. And at the moment its unimaginable for a lot of people how to get plex in first month for a new player. Sure, they can play as an alpha for some time, but grind will be devastating. As omega they will grind for years too. And even vets occasionally play as alpha, and its totally unhealthy.

So, for me it was clear, that CCP must try to lower the isk price of a plex, and shut down an alpha status thing. All this “drop plex price thing”, you know it, when you see it. But it also means, that most of the new players will drop from the game. They will rose up from the chairs, than sit back and type in gaming forums, that Eve is suck. So, less players to come. Its already a significant drop in online value. There will be no new players buying plex. Only salty vets on eve forums. Who have stucks of plexes.

So there must be drop in demand of plex, the price must go down, right? But it looks like everything is fine. Plex prices are rising, somebody is buying the things. Who? I guess, its the guys, who stack plexes for years. By their effort of buying the thing, they are producing fake demand by buying PLEXes and then putting them back in market for higher price.

I would like to tell something about building a tower by taking blocks from its basement. Tell about Plex holders buried by prices collapse. But its plex prices, not a tower. Plex holders may “feed” from their stacks, easily surviving any price collapses. For years. But in case of tower collapse situation its totally possible, that a lot of players around will find, that its a way more easy to buy plexes from markets, instead of buying it from CCP. So, it must be CCP here under the collapsed tower.

But most probably, CCP will be fine. Even in the dearest of the collapses, there will be a “midclass” player – he just got into the game, he buys plexes from CCP directly. He thinks that he will be shot at Jita, cause he is gallente. And he doesn’t know, that PLEX exists. I guess, it was always about 8-10k players, who pays for plex regulary, everyone else: money[plex]bags, whiney “poor” noobs, active teen pvpers – they are all is just a furniture for the merry space mining game, which Eve is actually is.

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This again. :roll_eyes:

We’d need to get rid of the notion that this game is free. No matter if the PLEX price goes up or down - getting enough ISK to buy PLEX will always be a mindless grindfest for most new players that try just to quickly find out that ISK don’t come free either. Just let them start like everyone started back in the day: Paying 15 bucks a month and having all their ISK income available for blowing ■■■■ up.

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Here’s an extremely bad idea that will get me flamed to hell:

Maybe CCP needs to ad-blast the Alphas to “go Omega” with a subscription plan after a month. I mean, everywhere in-game, embedded banner ads, pop-ups, full-screen overlays, the works. Make sure the ads include the words “this game is not free, pay up.”

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How about this fix to the situation:

Stop CCP from attracting people who don’t want to pay their sub with cash, so the demand for plex goes down. Stop teaching everyone how to play “for free”. That’ll help lowering the price of plex. boom!

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The current PLEX market seems largely driven by an insatiable demand for skill injectors.

The number of PLEX consumed to pay the subscription cost of skillpoint farms and extractors exceeds the new supply from people selling PLEX purchased from CCP to pay for injectors and other in-game projects.

From CCP’s point of view this is a substantial income stream and a lot of accrued liability should be coming off the books!

As far as a player is concerned, 40 hours/month running level 4 missions plus a 3 character PI farm in highsec will still earn enough to PLEX the account at current prices. It will take you at least a year as a paid subscriber to gain the skills, knowledge and experience to do this but Eve isn’t supposed to be easy. Income potential in nullsec is easily double what you can earn in highsec if you don’t mind being hot dropped and blown up occasionally.

Last, but not least, I expect a lot of PLEX will be entering the market as a result of the winter expansion. People will be selling PLEX to buy refineries, blueprints, skills, etc … The price should drop temporarily.

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Yes I know this is a drum that I bang on a lot, but i’m going to do it yet again because it is still relevant.

the most damaging thing that has ever happened to eve, has been the notion that a new player could, or even should be able to afford a plex in their first month, or even their first couple of months.

yes it is possible, yes its been done, but it is in NO way the norm, or something that a new player should be expecting or aspiring too. telling them that they can is like telling them that they “can” be running a null-sec alliance in their first month. yes it is possible, but for 99.999% of them they won’t have the IG skills, or the OOG knowledge to do it effectively. and trying to do it too early is only going to result in frustration and burnout.

When I started, I was told about plexing my account as an option sure. but it was also always hammered home that it was an end game activity, the type of thing that I wasn’t likely to achieve in my first year, or even my first two years, and that I should just enjoy the game until then.

We need to go back to telling the new players that, be honest with them about it. no not everyone will listen (I certainly didn’t at first, and it burned me out more than once trying), but if that saves even 1 in 10 players from burning themselves out, then thats still a 10% reduction in players leaving. and of those 9 who try it anyways, they will at least have been warned, and one or two of them might realize it and come back again in a few months.

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I think the worst mistake CCP has made is introduction of plex. Should have stuck with GTC only.

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Plex, GTC… Call it by any name, it’s ruled by the same laws. You were able to trade GTC for ingame cash as well, so yes, same rules applied. Thing is, people hear “one can pay for omega with ingame means” and think to themselves “it’s easy to do so”.

Newsflash, it is not. ESPECIALLY not for new players. Maybe even less so now because the same currency to pay for omega gametime is used for cash store items, too, thus putting more demand on PLEX. But if people still sink PLEX into vanity items, PLEX prices on the market are not too high.

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The GTC trading was never advertised much, and it was kind of obscure, hidden away in a subsection of the forums like the Character Bazaar still is. People didn’t start the game expecting to not have to pay cash to play it, and many didn’t even learn about the option to trade GTC for ISK until quite some time into the game. Nowadays it’s all “Play for free!”. And even if they don’t fall for that, they get “Buy PLEX now!” shoved in their faces right when they start playing and will quickly find said PLEX on the market.

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PLEX is a very useful tool. It discourages RMT by giving players a legal way to buy ISK with real world cash. With the new micro PLEX you can get about 300 million ISK for $5.00 - which is a nice jump start to the game for a new player. Going the other way, players can redeem PLEX for game time or NES products and services. By itself, PLEX is not inflationary since it doesn’t change the amount of ISK in the game - it simply moves it between wallets.

The price of PLEX on the in game market is the intersection between what a player who has PLEX is willing to accept and a player who wants PLEX is willing to pay. PLEX is a luxury good - it is not required to play the game. I accept that the ability to pay with PLEX makes it easier for people in less affluent parts of the world to play the game but that option is still there. It’s a lot of work, especially for newer players, but it should be. Playing the omega game for free is not an entitlement.

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