How old is PLEX? Aurum? ETC?

Communications Center General Discussion
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I seem to have found the first answer. PLEX was made in 2008 but only obtained in game from ETCs until 2009 where CCP store begun selling PLEX, and 2014 where ETC was completely removed 3rd party sellers sold PLEX too.

I found a post stating it was available from the CCP store since 2009. But also that you could convert it already in 2008. The link I found to what seems to be the release message for PLEX just gives a server error. But I did find https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/the-etc-is-dead-long-live-the-plex-activation-code which explains a bit about ETC and the original partner sold PLEX packages.

I found ETC is Eve Time Code, but how did you get these? And how did they come into the game to be converted?

There was also this stuff called Aur, Aurum or something that was all converted into PLEX at one point, as far as I understood this was originally used for the clothes store. Very hard to search for Aur which it is commonly called in posts though, thanks to Arch Linux …

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For historical information about Aurum, see the EVE Uni Wiki page.

Regarding ETC’s they were 16 character codes that could be redeemed in game for a 30-day Pilot’s License EXtension (PLEX)*, an in-game object that could be sold for ISK or activated. ETCs were available through third-party partners (and I think direct from CCP, though not really sure). ETCs replaced the old GTCs (Game Time Cards) which were physical cards with a code under scratch-off foil.

* At the time, PLEX was only used for game time, not for any other in-game purchases. When microtransactions were introduced with WiS/CQ, the conversion rate was one PLEX to 3500 Aurum. Aurum was the currency for buying apparel and augmentations until PLEX was re-factored 1:500 and Aurum was removed from the game.