Easy Way To Stop Speculation In Plex

To stop rampant speculation in plex I propose an easy fix. Any plex bought directly from CCP enters the game as a gold plex. Gold plex can be used by the purchaser to buy items from the in game store, used for game time or can be put up for isk sale on the market. HOWEVER any plex bought directly from the market for isk, once purchased, becomes a ‘red’ plex placed in a unique wallet for that character that only can only be used to purchase game time or in store items, and cannot be relisted for a second time on the market or traded by other means.

This simple change would cut out the middlemen speculators. All plexes currently held by a character would be split 50/50 on introduction of this new ‘red’ plex - half retaining gold status but half switched to red plex, only usable by the current owner. I predict this would see a huge dump of plex on the market and end (or at least drastically slow down) the permanent rise in plex prices. I would give the Eve community three months advance warning so hoarders can try and liquidate their stock piles somewhat.

Nice Idea but what happens when someone trades plex or even when the buyer just buys 1 off the market for ISK and then repeats to get the amount till they have enough for their purpose … ? You simply can’t split 1 plex and I see that becoming the norm if this was introduced …

Not sure what you are trying to say mate.

The method I propose basically means that any plex can only be sold for isk ONCE and after that can only be used by the purchaser for added game time or to buy in store items like skins.

If somebody is buying plexes in small batches to plex their account then the only thing that changes is the fact they cannot resell the plex they bought on the market. They can still keep purchasing plex until they have enough to pay for their own game time.

Why is this s problem? So people speculate on PLEX. They speculate on other items as well. Alliance tournament coming up… Speculate on faction hulls that may be used heavily in the tourney but no where else. Changes to build material costs, speculate on mineral prices.

What your post seems to be missing is why this speculation is a problem. For myself if I buy PLEX to sell for isk, I like speculation as it drives the price up. Yet I know that price is a bubble and will pop.

And if CCP is worried, they could always drive price down by finding or creating new PLEX faucets. Need more… Each of a rare faction pirate ship could have a chance to drop a PLEX or say part of an event.

So why exactly is the speculation bad?

The problem IMO is the fact that plex are purchased with REAL MONEY whereas all other items are created, found or gifted as prizes IN GAME.

I have two accounts that I pay RL money for but I know a few players who have stopped playing because plex prices keep increasing and they can’t be bothered with the boring PvE grind for isk. IMO plex speculators are the ‘rich elite’ of Eve, using their vast wealth to force people who can’t afford a sub to grind more and more with the speculator getting the fruits of the boring grind instead of the guy grinding. At least under my proposal the middlemen leeches get cut out of the loop and it becomes a straight trade between the original plex buyer and the guy willing to grind isk for the plex.

I don’t like the fact that people can speculate in a game on items purchased with real world money.

But that isn’t the only use of plex and could screw over people. Say I am the logistics for a large null alliance. I need plex for alliance tourney buy-in and wish to supply them locally for my members. Under your proposal, I could not use alliance funds to buy them on the jita market and offer them on trade in my local hub.

In fact, this would devastate local hub plex markets as people could not trade unless they bought the plex originally with cash, limiting such people to only being able to fund such endeavours with cash.

If an alliance wants to buy plex to enter the alliance tournament just give a guy access to a corp wallet and get him to jump clone to Jita and go buy them. Buying an alliance tournament spot could be added as a third way to spend ‘red plex’.

Why do you want people to be able to speculate on the only in game item bought with real world money?

The problem is that the plex used for alliance tournament can be refunded if not used. For example, I bid 5000 PLEX (50 in old terms) in the silent auction. If I am not picked, it is returned. If returned as red plex, it sits in wallet making an advantage for one player out of alliance funds. If CCP has to convert red to gold, it could be scammed in some way causing problems. And if you have to pay in gold PLEX, that would create a negative image for the alliance tournament.

Additionally, why do you not want to allow an alliance to buy plex in Jita and then offer them for sale in their home system? Under your method, only plex bought with cash would enable this, and that seems wrong.

As for why I want it allowed, 4 reasons… Eve has an open market economy. Limiting PLEX adds a limit to the free market. I do not want that added because it could become a stepping stone to other limited items. I do not want to see skins and apparel which may only be initially generated by PLEX purchase, turned into one sale items as well.

Secondly, PLEX right now are a simple item in the database. It’s no different than ammo. You can stack and the database records a stack of X, reducing the load on the database. Under your system, each plex must be tracked as a unique item to ensure it transitions at the right time. This adds burden and requires back end programming effort I would rather see spent else where.

Prizes… If I hold an event, I want to fund the event in game. I could not offer PLEX prizes as I could only transfer gold ones, requiring I spend money. That is a limitation. Yes I could just use isk, but I can’t make a stack of isk as a tradeable item without involving a trusted 3rd party. A plex I could put in a corp wallet to show it is there. I could even split the stack, jump into jita and be a loot pinata if I wish for a game wide event. I can’t do that with isk easily.

Lastly, I do not want plex people have spent money on and plan to sell but may be out of game for 6 months because of real life returning to being only able to sell half the amount. Even if a year warning is given, it could screw people over which I would prefer not to see.

1 Like

I am still waiting for a reason why plex speculation is a bad thing beyond “but now dey cost too much and I don’t know how to make more isk without grinding”

1 Like

Well we’ll have to beg to differ.

I feel that plex price manipulation is slowly driving some people out of the game and I fail to see why some middle men market manipulators should be able to gain the fruits of somebody’s else’s boring in game grind, especially when it comes to something involving real world money.

I see no problem.

Because they facilitate the flow of isk.

your suggestion would actually INCREASE plex prices exponentially. and here is why.
yes, people horde plex but they do not sit on it indeffinetly, at some point most of that plex will hit the market again. contributing to the overall supply.
If plex is prohibited from ever being re-listed, then you have effectively taken those plex out of circulation.

it will also do nothing to reduce the demand on plex, since they can still be used for all the same things they are now. and just like aurum back in the day, there will always be ways to convert it back into isk at a profit.

when you reduce the total supply, without reducing demand, prices will skyrocket.

1 Like

Well, I suppose killing the PLEX market would indeed end PLEX speculation. Sorry about that everyone. Maybe CCP will reintroduce GTC for us or something.

If GTC comes back, which I doubt it will, we will have GTC price complaint thread.

1 Like

So, I use red plex to buy a bunch of skill extractors from the item store and then list those on the market instead?

1 Like