For the few, rather than the many

Communications Center General Discussion
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Hey folks
Logged back into EVE after a long slumber. So much have changed. And Im sure most of it, is for the better.
However. I tried the Alpha-clone-state, that is pretty much useless. I cant fit anything in my hangars lol.

So I looked up Plex-prices, and saw it was around 3.1 mill per Plex. At first I dropped my jaw and thought: “Damn! EVE is finally ready for buiness!” (Buisness in the way of new players and a new generation to populate the future of EVE).
I guess I was kinda surprised, when Dixie-local gently told me, that I need approx. 1.5 bill isk per plex lol…#wutface.

So the game that was already one of the most complex and inaccessible games in history, just became even more focused on a small hardcore crowd, that run the game through huge alliances. Inflation of Plex price might be awesome for the plex-traders, and CCP, but I fail to see why anyone would ever pay that much per month, to play a game, that takes years to excell in lol. Its simply going “full retard”, in my view.

I have a long contacts-list from the old days, and NONE of them, where online anymore. I miss EVE, like it was 2 yrs ago (+ a few of the new changes), but now the game is for ultra-fanbois, accountants and politicians, and the odd freelancers, that already had enough isk to fuel the next couple of years with Plex. Oh, and plextraders, ofc.
What happened to this game?

Edit: Since I started this thread, Ive become aware, that EVE already ARE trying to address some of these issues. What remains to be discussed, is about how the new generations perceive EVE and games in general. And how they react to the economy surrounding the game etc. Bear that in mind, before you puke in my face. Thx ´preciate it lol…

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Welcome back!

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~ 3.1 million per plex is correct

Not sure if this is just badly worded, but the 1.5 billion cost is for 500 PLEX (at 3.1m each) not per plex, 500 PLEX being the cost of 1 months sub.

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CCP has nothing to do with plex prices. They do not benefit from highs or lows.

If you want to Play this game you can either pay the same as two years ago and buy a subscription or play for free in alpha state. I fail to see any retardation at work.

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Well… For one thing, watch list was changed. Unless the contact approves, you can’t see their online status any more.

Plex changed because having plex and Autumn, two premium currencies, was too complicated and frustrating. So… PLEX was broken into smaller units. This allowed the elimination of aurum.

As for alpha state, it was an extended trial. Go look at the eve Vegas keynote. They ate changing alphas so you will have access to more skills after that change.

As for your bitterness, do more research. A lot has changed but in a good way. Your assumption that eve is less open is incorrect. So start reading as that is one constant in eve.

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You should know though that a year-and-a-half ago CCP change the buddy list to basically not work anymore. You will only see if another player is online if they have added you as a contact (and they are online of course). So the red dot could mean that they are indeed online, but don’t have you as a contact.

Yes, I know, that doesn’t especially make much sense in a social game like Eve but there were good reasons to do so at the time. I suggest you directly Eve mail some of those you are most interested in reconnecting with and seeing if they are indeed gone.

PLEX prices are high, and likely will continue to get higher but perhaps the upcoming expansion of the Alpha skill set might make it more tolerable for you to play without omega status. If not well, you will have to subscribe for cash or just get your grind on which is most easy as part of a nullsec group. You can also mostly pay for your subscription by using skill extractors (also probably new to you) to extract your skills each month and sell them to other players for ISK you can then use to buy PLEX.

Welcome back!

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Welcome to the reality of Eve, where years of meta-gaming by the null sec cartels, including gaining more and more influence with CCP devs and decision-makers, has resulted in the end-game you have described.

The entire meta of the game is geared now to servicing the desires of the null sec cartels, regardless of what the spin-masters inside the cartels and CCP will say.

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Making ISK is probably a lot easier than when you left though.

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I think it is. I’ve seen veteran players on here talking about it taking a year to make a billion and the new players I spend my time with are blowing that myth out of the water by a long way.

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I don’t follow your logic.

I pay 130 dollars a year or so to play. Same cost as it was in the mid 2000’s. The addition of plex as a method of subscribing and allowing an unlimited trial through the Alpha system just makes access easier for casual players, not harder. You can take your time grinding up for plex to play for free if you don’t want to use real money.

I’m not a great isk-maker by any stretch… but since re-subbing my two accounts last November I’ve gone from about 3b isk in assets and cash to about 50b isk over two accounts. It would cost around 36b to sub for a year… so it’s not like that’s impossible for a fairly casual player.

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I could be mistaken. Weren’t you part of that discussion about how new players definitely can’t afford to buy injectors and the like?

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Thx for the kind feedback. Only a little bit of warranted salt, present lol.

But yeah, it may all be much batter than I currently think, but fact remains, that I have 110+ SPs, that I cant use, unless I pay 15+ EUs per month for it, or on a daily basis, with the smaller plex-bits (if thats how it works).
Id love to dive into EVE again, but I worry that most my time would be spent on drilling for isk, to pay the sub, since Im not updated on anything happening in 2 yrs or so. So combat is pretty much new to me. Even in PvE, Id have to research a lot and do a lot of trial and error (losing ships in the process), before I get near a point, where I can earn the monthly fee relatively easy and fast.

Thats the whole point, really. It simply takes too much time and bother, to get back in the game on a level thats tolerable. The usual way Id go about this, would be to join some helpfull corp/alliance, that could help with all that etc. But again, that also takes some footwork. If the game is entirely evolved around how the plex-market works, then all the rest of the game is gonna be hard to get into, for new/returning players).
We cant all know all the scamming tricks and plex-trading tricks.

So yeah, was hoping this aspect of the game had changed, but in my view, for now it seems it just got worse, for my type of playstyle (Casual).
I dont know. Maybe EVE just ended up being like this, because thats how the market and politics work in the game, and thats fine. But they should then make a second main server, where everybody started anew, and with no monthly fee (hence the plex-trading and maybe the alliance-dominance wouldnt be so smothering, for the new people trying to love the game. That way, if youre into the grander things of EVE, you play on the hardcore EVE main server. If youre a casual player, with little time to play, you just play the other server.
Right now, it takes a little masochism, to play the game. And WAY too much time for farming etc. or a huge RL wallet lol.
NB. I know many of you keep saying its easy to make isk, but not for new people or people returning to game after yrs away. It just aint that easy.

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Yes … and my contribution to that discussion was to say that actually they can, because it is much easier to earn ISK now, which is exactly what I am saying here.

Comprehension clearly isn’t your strong point.

Now, do you have anything of your own to contribute to this thread or have you just come to pick at my comments as per usual?

:roll_eyes:

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It really is. I spend all of my time with new players, and they announce how much ISK they have earned on a daily basis, and the amounts I am talking about do not support the ‘hard to earn ISK’ myth. Project Discovery alone is doubling most peoples income.

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Question is: Has it become 3 times better, the isk-making? Because, when I left the game last, Plex (1 month sub) cost around 550mill. Now its around 1.5 bill. if earning only improved a little, then whats the argument? Still damn expenssive imo, or time-consuming.
I know you guys are all probably billionaires in there, and have multiple characters shoveling isk, but it cant be good, that you need multiple accounts and all sorts of other things cooking, to make it easy to pay for plex. Its simply too restrictive to casual players, with little time to play or kids and young people. ANd those are the ones supposed to keep EVE populated, afaik. Or are they planning on turning EVE into a Resthome for old billionaires, sitting alone in their Titans, wondering where everybody went lol.

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Interesting…
So youre saying, that with logging in, with my Alpha-clone, I can make 1.5 bill easy, with only T1 ships/items?
Hmm, I find that hard to believe…

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Is it supposed to be easy? I didn’t think it was supposed to be?

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lol semantics.
It is, if they want more players re-populating EVE, so it dosent keep the same population for years.
As the counter tells us, EVE havent grown at all, in years. Was around 20-40.000 playing. And most of them, were alts. I somehow dont think those numbers have changed. Most likely, there are even more alts, and less new players. So yeah, its supposed to NOT be so hard, that people just give up after playing a few hours. The learning curve is legendary already. No need to ask people to also climb Mount Everest too, while paying through the nose for it lol.

NB. STEAM shows a total of 2.657 players playing it right now. Thats frankly quite pathetic.

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Most people don’t play through steam.

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So youre saying, that EVE is growing and getting a lot of new players? And that they stay longer? And that even 20.000 unique players would be a high number? Well, for a game with that ambition, Id think that Id demand higher numbers joining, if I were CEO of CCP lol. Because frankly, its pathetic. This game almost has everything needed to be a complete world-winner. If they merged Joystick-Valkyrie gameplay for Frigates only in EVE, and made the game almost free to play, Id say it would become pretty easy to get MANY more new players. And get them to stay longer.
But yeah, I realize that the old EVE-player segment, wouldnt like too much change to their favorite Online-Tamaguchi lol… Just sad. More new players, more targets and victims of scams :slight_smile: