Right now we have 38,780 PCU, it’s looking great and I am impressed. Honestly I do think CCP has started to listen and changed the game somewhat. Perhaps they can see something we can’t.
I typed it multiple times already, the 500-700m isk refers to my speculation of what 30 days of game time is worth in isk. I’m not talking about any other plex service except game time. So my general convo is; Does anyone care to speculate on what 30 days of gametime is worth in isk ?
Yes, this is my speculation of what its value could be on the player controlled market.
Agreed.
I really wish CCP could make this kind of data available. Heck part of it is already available, making more of it so people can take a look at these things would not be a problem, IMO, in terms of customer confidentiality since they are already making the data available…just not far enough back. A longer time series would be very helpful.
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Are you proposing any change to existing PLEX services/mechanics, or just the re-implementation of GTC sales by 3rd parties?
How would the GTCs be sold in the player market?
You remember what the last noticeable thing was CCP did?
Personally I don’t think it is worth to grind for the monthly subscription fee if it takes you more than two or three hours maximum. Make that a few hours more if you really enjoy what you are doing for your ISK.
The only way I could see me grinding for ISK all day long would be the lack of work that allows me to earn a few dollars an hour. But perhaps even for players from countries with poor wages there could be a better way than grinding ISK to no end:
Allow them to pay with BitCoins? Because I think it is easier to earn bitcoins worth a few dollars than it is to earn actual dollars when you are stuck with high inflation for example. That you need access to the internet, a computer and maybe basic English skills isn’t a problem as you need those for EVE too anyway.
Current PLEX price because I think the perceived value of PLEX is the game time it gives, not the skins/extractors/whatever service.
Are you referring to the Alpha clone balance in lifeblood?
1 bitcoin is worth £5,057.00 right now. That’s a lot of game time 
I wish I brought 1000s of bit coin when they were first generated. I’d be a millionaire right now.
I don’t think CCP would accept bitcoin to play eve due to its high fluctuating value. This seems more like something they would invest in privately.
It is worth as much as you are willing to give for it.
Speculators heaven.
Hmmm, perhaps the value I said is a guideline? I believe bitcoin is used for trading just like all other currencies are. Buying as low as you can and selling for as high as you can seems to be the method.
You are right. Bitcoins can only be trades in units of 6.5 Mil $ and therefore there is no way to pay an online game service with such a currency. What was I thinking? Crazy idea – can’t work at all. And you are also right that CCP probably won’t accept such a volatile currency. How would they adapt the price to all the upwards trends lately? Good thing you can pay CCP in ruble, that one is solid as a rock.
There are reasons why corporation aren’t all that open to selling their stuff or bitcoins. Most of them also happen to accept rubles if they sell product in Russia.
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Only way to blunt the rise of PLEX price, is by the introduction of more PLEX.
My suggestion is implementing small PLEX rewards for completion time inflexible content that can be run by Alphas.
The benefit of this is threefold:
-The groundswell of player earned PLEX will help offset the purely monetary introduction of PLEX, as a factor of PLEX price ingame. The higher PLEX rises, the more players will run the PLEX reward content, thus creating an ingame dynamic to moderate PLEX price.
-Helps new players earn isk in a game where new players are increasingly priced out of the market, by supplying PLEX to a starved market.
-Believe it or not, a substantial proportion of players have it as their ingame goal to be able to PLEX their account, With these small PLEX rewards, an Alpha can supplement their PLEX vault so as to one day, perhaps in a few months of grinding, be able to go Omega off PLEX for a month, before returning to Alpha again. With the upcoming Alpha changes this means a player can gradually cycle through Omega to fill up the 20mil limit, after which they hopefully will be committed enough to EVE to consider paying for a sub IRL.
I believe the rate of PLEX introduction by this reward method can be moderated so that it does not unduly upset CCPs PLEX/sub revenue, nor the ingame PLEX market (in which demand already grossly exceeds supply) especially as any one individual player would be earning only a trickle of PLEX.
Furthermore, those players running the PLEX content, may or may not sell them. If they do, the PLEX market is supplied, if they dont sell them, they have the same effect on demand by earning their own PLEX over time, rather than buying it off the market.
I think this is a good “soft touch” method to blunt the edge of PLEX price. As it is directly related to player activity in the game, it cant be called artificial or as an unfair interference on the PLEX situation. Those players will have to “earn” the PLEX, according to opportunity costs/time/effort invested.
With cryptocurrencies is this problem, you can have infinite amount of them:
Lets say I have a bunch of rocks, those rocks I can sell you for dollars, one rock for one dollar.
These rocks I mined myself and they are one of their kind.
Then someobody else sees it and he starts mining their own rocks of different kind, and sells them like I have done it.
And another person does it.
And another one.
Another one.
Who needs so much rocks? Those who want to have dollars selling rocks. But if you have ability to add them into infinity, the rocks will ultimately be so much, people will use them to fill holes in roads.
EXcept that you cant use cryptocurrency even to fill holes in a cheese. Its as virtual as it gets.
Looks like elaborate scam to make people pay for virtual stuff.
PLEX itself, is a cryptocurrency, as is isk.
Furthermore, SP has also become one, as is the data generated by Project Discovery stages.
Even more obscure, is the value generated by EVE advertisement via various 3rd party systems. (Yes, ads are cryptocurrency).
You forgot some cons:
- those who supply PLEX to the game will have their reward lowered (thus less wish to spend RL money on it)
- reducing PLEX supply from RL money you reduce CCP funding
Imagine stupid maximum of Your idea: players grind in-game as many PLEX as needed by the whole community. No PLEXes are needed to be injected using RL money. Players who injected PLEX using RL money are left: they didn’t want to grind from the start. CCP’s funding is zero. Server down while players are happy for some time.
Now current situation: PLEXes are supplied by RL money. CCP has some funding, some players are buy ISK supplying these PLEXes.
As i see it any possible level of Your idea reduces CCP funding thus the idea will never be implemented.
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I specifically addressed those points in my proposal.
We dont know if PLEX purchase from CCP has gone up or down. We do know demand is outstripping supply.
In my proposal, the inlux of PLEX into EVE will be augmented by players expending time/effort to introduce it. This the higher the price of PLEX, the more PLEX will enter the market, just as the higher the price of PLEX, more players will buy it from CCP (theoretically).
My proposal introduces a game internal moderative aspect on the price/supply of EVE that runs concurrent to the incentive to buy PLEX outside of the game.
Would be true, only if more players would spend RL money to aid their efford. With the same amount of people, who are lazy enough not to grind their ISK, but rather pay RL money for them, effect is exactly opposite. They needed to buy 3 PLEXes to buy a 1,5 bilion Machariel with fittings. When PLEX was 500 millions. Now they need to buy only 1 PLEX cause CCP was stupid enough to sell skins, skill extractors and other things for aurum/ plex instead of ISK. Which created initial push for PLEX prices.
Micro plex give that tendency bigger bump, cause many Alpha players started to buy small amount of it to upgrade to Omega. But because of the 1,5 bilion end game they never get there and quit game in frustration. All those 100-200 mini-plexes hoarded in process result in nothing else but more pressure on PLEX price. Multiply that by few thousands alphas getting and leaving in a month and you see hundrets of thousands of dead weight mini plexes, that raised PLEX price but never became a big PLEX.
As a more concrete example:
Let us say that content which takes 10 mins to complete has a random 1-3 PLEX reward (averaging out as 2) + bounties/wrecks/modules - time to find/brokerage fees.
On the outside, a player running this theoretically/impossibly continually without time inbetween to find the instances, could potentially introduce an average of 12 PLEX per hour, so a net value of 36mil in isk value (assuming the current value at 3mil).
Inorder for that player to PLEX themself off this activity, on the theoretical/impossible outside, they would have to run this content for 41 hrs, so 45mins everyday, for a month.
I dont find that an unreasonable effort/opportunity cost, especially as the reality of this will be SUBSTANTIALLY less in terms of PLEX generation per account, due to time involved in finding the next PLEX content instance, let alone competition clearing them before their arrival.
A more realistic expectation, would be 1/4-1/3 of the above numbers per account, per hour. Possibly even less depending on how many players actively start completing these sites.
The net result:
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-More PLEX on the market, as a factor of how players actively pursue this (admittedly) low profit activity.
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-More isk dispersal, as isk goes to players that have themselves earned the PLEX and putting it on the market, rather than buying it ingame/out of game,
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-That the PLEX market, which recently has not only been fragmented, but inversly consolidated as the sole currency for CCP services (outside of IRL money payments), becomes dynamic as to actual ingame activity regarding PLEX.
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-Those players that take the time to farm PLEX for themselves, are players that will not have bought a sub anyways. If they wanted to/could buy a sub, they wouldnt be running PLEX content. CCP loses nothing on their account. Other players that have the means to earn enough isk to buy PLEX also are not subbing, and wont be interested in farming the 1-3 PLEX reward content.
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-The aggregate of PLEX introduced to the market by this content will not compete with PLEX price from CCP. People bought PLEX from CCP even when it was worth less than half of what it is worth today in isk (even allowing for inflation). Some of these players running PLEX content will sell them, thus supplying the market, others will retain them for themselves, thus reducing demand. Result is the same.
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-The PLEX sourced from these instances will be held in the players ship hold until they reach station, and thus vulnerable to acquisition by aggressors, thus providing a new avenue for emergent content.
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-The impending Alpha change to a max limit of 20mil SP is significant. In my proposal, an Alpha can run PLEX content and hold the PLEX until they are able to PLEX their account to Omega inorder to gain a months worth of SP that fills their SP limit. This reduces demand for PLEX on the market, and means Alphas can slow grind their way to the 20mil limit, by alternating between months of Alpha with an Omega month inbetween. Once they reach 20mil, or otherwise want to engage in activities unavailable to Alphas, hopefully they will then consider paying IRL money to CCP for a sub, as they have plateaued on what they can do/achieve as an Alpha, and have become committed to the game.
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-Most importantly: If CCP was only concerned with immediate revenue, they would have raised the price of IRL money for PLEX, to account for the increase in demand of PLEX ingame. Since higher isk price motivates more purchase, rationally, CCP should have raised the price of PLEX for cash. Obviously, they have not. Instead they run seasonal discounts and are now offering <500 PLEX sales. Keeping a game like EVE vibrant and populated is about much more than CCPs revenue.
TLDR:
-I am talking about roughly a 3-4PLEX per hour rate of introduction on any individual account actively running the content. This is so small, that on any individual account it will not upset the PLEX/sub market, and even in gross aggregate, will only blunt the edge of PLEX price rise.