Hi
Would any member of CSM backed this insane idea and discussed it with CCP if enough votes are cast in favor?
How much valid votes would need to be casted in favor, for you to find it worthy of consideration?
This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how plex works in terms of company revenue (it doesn’t get treated as income until its redeemed for game time), and there is zero chance CCP is going to be okay with something like this.
Now, I’m sure if you want to donate them a large bit of money they’d be willing to work on your pet stuff, but this is kind of a waste of time even talking about.
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How so? It was already paid for by someone with hard cash?
I understand you could see this that way if you PLEX your accounts with PLEX recycled from market, but it still can be bought afresh from CCP and sunk into that DEV time in NES. Just as you sink PLEX on ship skins or tatoos for your char.
CCP treats plex as deferred income on their balance sheets. Plex represents a contract between the players and the company for 30 days of game time. While we buy and sell it for in-game currency, it only becomes real world revenue to them when someone redeems it for game time. Say, if there is $7 million total plex rolling around (this is a number I seem to recall) but only $1 million of it is redeemed in a year, CCP can only claim $1 million in revenue, and the rest is treated as a liability that is carried over until it’s used.
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I totally get it, seriously and that is how I see it too. But can’t the CCP broaden the terms of this contract?
PLEX could also be seen as demand rights that those idling $7 millions are collateral to. And so we use those rights to demand game time, ships skins and apparel in NES. Why can’t we demand bug fixes or new features with those rights? That would redeem chunks of that $7 million for CCP really fast. It would be sound accountancy wise imho.
As was pointed in the thread I linked in OP, not all feature demands would be feasible for implementation as they could simply not fit into CCP’s vision for EVE or be technically impossible to implement in regard of present state of the source code.
So it would be at the sole CCP discretion to inform the author and the yes voters if the manhours required to implement the request are impossible to estimate or come up with specific manhours estimate, convert its cost to PLEX and put it in NES for us to buy out with PLEX until specific deadline.
I fathom that cost, expressed in PLEX could possibly get as high as thousands or millions PLEX. …or am I exaggerating?
Also, as I described in the thread linked, I assumed the CSM would be involved in the process as well, for example in the verification of the manhours estimate given by devs and overseeing if it is being implemented 
Do you still sustain your stance on this not being worth discussing with CCP?
Yes - no matter how much we ask, they aren’t going to start developing the game based on how we vote. If that were true, they’d do whatever the CSM asked them to do. I just don’t see this as anything remotely in the realm of them considering.
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You are. I was working on some open source game modifications, specifically Jagged Alliance 2 where the community inherited full source.
The excuses about old code are â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– (these excuses are only valid for stuff like TIDI and other performance changes where the original system was coded using some programming method which is now obsolete and reworking it onto new method that is more efficient would be way too much work). And the majority of the features we ask in QoL thread are a 5 minutes job once you know the source and know where to look at (something I would expect from official developers). As long as no new graphic is needed, 5 minutes is quite accurate estimate of time needed to code something like for example one of my own proposals to automatically cancel currently targeted cache, if that cache is successfully hacked/looted.
Some of the features that players requested might need new texts. That is also bit problematic as there are afaik some supported translations, so someone needs to translate those texts for them. And as I already wrote, features that requires new graphic - new 2D images would also require more than 5 minutes as someone would have to make them. On the other hand, for example my revised idea to give us ability to lock sorting in overview via new “lock” icon would not need that because the lock icon already exists - all that would needed would be to show it when player hovers over that top row with the labels and hide after. 5 minutes job. I am speaking from experiences. Another thing that takes more time is repositioning GUI elements - that is bit harder as that requires ton of playtesting to get it correctly.
What might make any of such feature to require some manhours would be testing them. I have no idea how/if at all CCP is testing their new stuff, how many playtesters they have and how much are they testing small QoL changes. When I was working on JA2 code, I didn’t test my changes much. Just the basic use case and I must admit that once it happened that a bugfix I implemented broke the game in certain areas completely. I don’t have experiences with professional game development how this works, but developers in other games I play often using QA as excuse for something we want. Personally I see no sense in playtesting something as simple as the examples above - I see no potential for anything to get broken, but what I know…
And bugfixes. @Brisc_Rubal are you really trying to defend CCP for not fixing years old bugs? There is no excuse for not fixing obvious bugs that must have been reported thousand times already. If you want an example then for example the one where sometimes when you jump into another system with autopilot route set, the selected item window will not automatically show the next station/gate, but the one you came from (or nothing). Or the one where you undock with negative security status but not enough for facpo to hunt you (like -1.6 in 0.9 system) and facpo still hunts you until the downtime. And I could continue.
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The figure I provided (“thousands or millions of PLEX”) was rough estimate based on my corporate experience in software development (I am developer myself …and DevOps engineer). As a reminder, a manhour (MH) is an hour of interrupted work by one person. Software development cost is estimated in MH so to fill up this hour with 5 minute gigs, 12 such gigs must be lumped together 
One MH has usually fixed cost varying from company to company.
Let’s see how much it would be in CCP? 1 PLEX converts to ~$0.04 (avg), not much, I know. According to this stat an hour of (any) work in Iceland’21 is priced at ~$49.44 (avg) so it would be 1236 PLEX for 1 MH. I bet CCP values the work of its developers higher so 1 CCP MH costs x10 more or 12360 PLEX 
Is it so because there is a law or corporate rule that explicitly disallows CCP to redeem more? If so, then indeed their hands are tied and there is nothing more to discuss, sadly 
…or is this $1 million the amount of PLEX sunk every year by plexing and NES purchases?
Then there is hope
It might be so, because asking them do stuff for free would add more to that $7 mill liability and not drain it, isn’t it? Backing that requests with PLEX would allow CCP to actually redeem that account faster. I hope you see the difference.
I will be guessing here now, so plz bear with me. Let’s look at CCP’s art department.
Artists design new skins, and apparel for new content in game and it can be also put in NES. Their work costs CCP money. That cost is partially (or wholly) redeemed when we buy that stuff with PLEX in NES allowing CCP to redeem from PLEX account to income account. They fulfill the PLEX contract so they are legally allowed to book it.
Now let’s look at development department. Their time costs CCP money too and is redeemed mainly by plexing accounts. If plexing doesn’t cover all that time they have no incentive to work more on it. What I propose would allow CCP to redeem more PLEX to cover developers’ cost.
Where on earth did you get that from anything I wrote?
First, that’s like bribery.
Second, the devs could get lazy in not fixing things, and just wait for your money. I’m not going as far as to say they could even introducing bugs on purpose, but if they accept your idea of corruption, this is just one step away.
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Not at all. CCP has no obligation to us, under TOS and EULA to fix things, so they don’t.
Otherwise they would do it for free, or out of courteousy. What sometimes they do to keep up the appearance of caring for us. I bet they do, but to the point ofc. New game content is an investment in player retention and cost money that can’t be spent on fixing all bugs and satisfying our whims.
So allowing CCP to redeem part of the PLEX bought by us, by explicitly telling them:
here, you can redeem my PLEX, from that $7 mill pool, but instead of giving me game time (or ship skin) add this or that to the game content. Simple as that it seems
It is in no way bribe, just a fair bussines exchange.
perhaps we could start a plex for good campaign to fix eve?
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In a way that’s what I ask for, but as permanent ability to allow CCP improve the game by redeeming PLEX, and not just an occasional event. and PLEX for good is charity, not directly affecting EVE Online besides giving donors feel good time …and CCP can deduct those donations from yearly tax statements …as all corporations do.
As Brisc explained in the begining CCP can’t immediately convert PLEX into hard cash and book it as an asset but must wait until somebody sinks it in NES thus allowing CCP to legally redeem it.
The idea I peddle, precisely the paying part is based on some kind of tokens put by CCP in NES to represent the CCP Dev time, thus CCP’s cost, to implement a specific, voted bugfix/feature request.
The number of tokens depends on estimated earlier, by CCP Devs manhours needed to implement the request and would vary from request to request. So each request would have its own tokens representation in NES.
Buying up all those tokens, associated with a given request, would create legal contract binding CCP to develop functionality ordered by us and allowing CCP to cover development costs by redeeming chunks of PLEX pool (those idling $7 mils) and booking it to assets side of development costs account.
They won’t ask us is it ok to do so, we must tell them first we are okay with that and ready to sink our PLEX into it.
That is not what he said. It must be redeemed as GAME TIME. Otherwise its just floating in the ether
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Yes I remember that, but I am not sure If he precisely meant that only plexing game time allows CCP to redeem from PLEX pool. As I understand PLEX is CCP’s quantified promise to provide services upon giving said PLEX back to CCP.
Buying PLEX is buying that certain amount of service promise and putting it away for later use or giving away to or trading with other players so they can demand fulfilling the services promised from CCP with that PLEX obtained from other players (I can take out PLEX from PLEX Vault and put it in my cargo-hold, as I can do with Tritanium and give it away or contract).
What about ship skins and apparel? They costed CCP artists time too. Wouldn’t they want to reimburse that time with PLEX? Can they?
If so then why not reimburse dev time?
So if I buy 500 PLEX and trash it, I can net CCP an income loss?
If true, this is a better way how to show your displeasure with monetization of development guys. 
But it doesn’t make any sense. Is probably just an accounting thingy. The money already landed on CCP bank account, whether you use the PLEX for anything or you trash it, those dollars won’t disappear from their bank account.
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No. If you trash it, you explicitly issue a legally binding statement:
hereby, I, of sound mind and body, declare the following I waive my right to service you promised and you may redeem my PLEX immediately and book an income
Brisc explanined what PLEX is post #3 it is on the Liabilities side(Wiki) of the balance sheet
“Unearned revenue for services paid for by customers but not yet provided”
probably not, but as was said earlier it is $7 mills in frozen cash, CCP can’t legally touch until you claim your service promised by CCP …or until this promise expires because you abandoned your service claim by simply not claiming it for a loooong time?
Whats the difference between trashing the PLEX and giving it directly to CCP for some extra service then?
I see it this way:
If you trash PLEX CCP don’t has to do anything for you and redeems cash immediately from Liability side to Assets side on the balance sheet. If you plex, they have to wait with that until your game time expires. The time is the difference. If you don’t plex and stash indefinatelly, it just rots at Liability side until some lawyer(?) or tax officer(?) okeys booking to assets due to abandonment and salvage. But I am not an accountant and am wildly guessing here
But maybe this stashed PLEX is forever lost to CCP? So to net them as you said, you should ,counterintuitively, buy more and more PLEX but never use it 
How can you be so sure of it? Aren’t CCP supossed to decide itself what is “rubbish” to them?
I wen’t through your CSM Campain list of TODOs and I’ve found couple of ideas that made it into the production release. Your last stunt into making CCP back down on their idea - that heretic combat booster - shows CSM works and CCP listens.
Why do you think the adding more opportunities for CCP to redeem more PLEX would be dismissed?
I understand the acceptance of requests for implementations bears the risk of running into Intelectuall Property minefield, but I am sure it would be possible to overcome by simply passing them IP to CCP by consent before request is accepted under consideration.
I’ve red the Legal FAQ on CCP website and am aware of that unsolicited ideas issue. Although none of that legal reasons against it are made clear. I suspect IP reasons.