Ha, a lighting rod thread about plex prices, where people can post to be ignored.
Rightfully so.
Tell me you are not that dumb please⌠To be sure, next time iâll use the word pod in order to avoid sowing confusion in your little head.
I donât believe that the purchase of CCP by PA has had this influence. The chatter on the forum (and elsewhere) is created by a minority and doesnât actually have much impact on the majority of players. Players still sell PLEX for one reason and thatâs to get ISKs. Most players are anything but professional traders, and are rather oblivious and untouched by the effects you are describing here.
What I and many others did notice over the last few years is a seemingly increasing number of alt fleets. If these are bots or properly controlled fleets by individual players isnât so much of importance to the PLEX price than the fact that itâs getting more of them. Skill point farming got more popular with alt fleets, and acts as a multiplier to the demand for PLEX.
On the other hand has there not been an increase in incentive to sell PLEX into the game. Fact rather is that players who buy game time directly have to pay significantly less than what they have to pay for a PLEX. I.e. a month of game time currently costs ÂŁ9.99, an entire year costs as little as ÂŁ7.50 per month, while the equivalent amount of game time in PLEX costs between ÂŁ14.86 to ÂŁ16.99.
Thus I believe there is a much simpler explanation here: selling PLEX straight into the game for ISKs has partly been replaced by skill point farming. This seemingly more profitable method does however not produce more ISKs on the PLEX buyersâ side and itâs not placing more PLEX into the market. The consequence is a change on the demand and offer and with it comes a change in price.
One can notice a significant increase in the demand for skill point extractors without there being a significant increase in skill point injector sales. This leads me to believe that the trend of skill point farming has created a temporary bubble that causes an inflation of the PLEX price (as well as inflating injector and extractor prices), with some players no longer selling PLEX into the game, but sitting on increasing amounts of skill point injectors (or just skill points) and waiting to sell these for the right price.
So, first you say this:
(which is obviously incorrect, since you could already see on the chart it was not the case)
Then you say this:
Which obviously shows that Alpha state did, indeed, stabilize population numbers (âstabilizeâ means âremained roughly the sameâ, in case you have trouble with words as well as charts) - as opposed to the steep multi-year decline pre-Alpha.
Your numbers are only correct in about half the cases actually, so apparently you arenât very good at getting data from web sites either. I could post the correct numbers, but itâs obvious that you and the other âsub only!â dinosaurs arenât really interested in facts.
So which is it, are we in âan even steeper declineâ, or do you believe your own numbers that show Alphas stabilized the population from a steady decline to a levelling off?
Then you say:
Alphas are there to stabilize population numbers. Since they are new, free to play characters, exactly how much of the total âdestructionâ do you expect them to contribute? They are flying ships worth a couple million, not the giant trillion-ISK fleets of the big alliances. Alphas are about having actual body count of actual people online, not inflated numbers from guys multiboxing a dozen ships in Null to pay for their supers.
Succeeded at selling CCP for hundreds of millions of dollars, is what. 2 years after Alphas were introduced, CCP sat down with PA, opened the books, showed them the numbers, and PA said âYep, thatâs worth a couple hundred million bucks to us⌠maybe a couple hundred million more if you can increase themâ.
CCP and PA looked hard at the actual numbers and attached actual dollar value of hundreds of millions to them. That trumps all the âonly subs count!â wailing and flailing that you and the other dinosaurs are doing.
Post #4 sums it up quite nicely.
Look at 2019 so far.
And numbers did stop falling badly in 2015, the 6m intervals show that.
Look again. There was a spike when alphas came but it was almost completely gone 6 months later. then weâve been bouncing around the 30k mark since, which we were before alphas anyways. The best you can claim is a 3% increase for going free to play 
You probably had more players stop paying than players picking up the game.
But you â â â â â â it up the first time and donât want to be shown up again? Just post the real numbers man.
Citation needed.
Alphas arenât ânewâ. They are just free to play and include returning players and omegas turning to alpha. They also donât just fly cheap ships. They can fly upto faction battleships.
You said yourself (along with many others), they are meant to provide content. So Iâd say the success of that would be visible in destruction.
Alphas missioning on their own arenât providing content. It adds little, if anything, to the game.
Youâre saying that PA spent that money after going free to play merely stabilized numbers?
If PA looked at the actual numbers, theyâd have noticed that alphas gave a short burstof of life, but thereâs nothing to suggest that theyâve either increased player numbers or increased content. The activity numbers between alphas and PA acquisition are the same as they were before alphas. So far in 2019 they are a lot lower.
Iâm more inclined to think PA wanted ccpâs IP. But will monetize the crap out of eve whilst it lasts.
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Thank you for reminding me of one thing i forgot in the past years:
htfu.
'nuff said.
Thatâs pretty much how I see it playing out long-term also.
I figure Iâll see what happens and keep having fun in eve probably until the hamsters are re-homed by the RSPCA.
Youâre reading the charts wrong. We have seasonal fluctuations and you have to take these into account or else does one end up comparing âsummer holesâ to âChristmas peaksâ as you did. When one uses the summer holes as the lowest points within a year can one see that we did indeed had dropping numbers all the way into 2016. The period of July to September 2016 had an average of only 20k players. Instead of falling any further did the average for the same period in 2017 increase to 21k players. For 2018 was it already 23k players. Based on the lowest numbers within each year can one say that the game has been recovering.
The introduction of Alpha accounts however has had a much more visible impact on the number of new players, which can be seen here:
The recovery can be seen in both graphs when one knows how to look for it. But the fight against a decline isnât over, and only gets worse the older the game gets. Old games just donât get the attention of potentially new players as new games do.
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Actually they donât, you just donât know how to pull the correct numbers off a 6m interval on that site.
Yes, this is what âstabilizedâ means, numbers no longer dropping.
I didnât post any numbers, I posted a chart. You posted numbers. Incorrect ones. Try to keep up.
Yes, and the chart you linked shows a small but steady increase in destruction. Pretty much exactly what youâd expect from free alpha players.
Still struggling with the concept of âstabilizedâ, I see. I never claimed they increased overall numbers, in fact I pointed out we are again starting to decline (because they have largely wasted their Alpha opportunity).
Right, because 3 months of data during a time slot that often shows falling numbers in EVE is so very meaningful.
I am starting to understand the issue with why it is so hard for the dinosaurs to grapple with the notion of F2P actually being a growth opportunity - despite the undeniable fact that a company with a 5-year old F2P game was able to buy out CCP lock, stock and barrel.
Itâs because they have trouble distinguishing reality from the things they want to believe.
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Me, me, me.
You do know that you can play for as little as $0.50/day or even as low as $0.365/day right? PLEX is not free. PLEX means you trade your time for ISK, which you then trade for Omega status. I trade my time for RL money, then I trade that with CCP for Omega status.
You have an important caveat here though, all other things held constant, and those may not be held constant.
The number of PLEX on sale in the Forge has been generally declining. Now, invoking the all other things constant assumption, this will drive up the price of PLEX. It is like the supply curve is shifting âinwardsââi.e. there are less PLEX on the market at every price level.
It should be pointed out that people do other things with PLEX than just obtain Omega status. This is part of the reason the âPLEX were 400 million 12 years agoâ complaint is just silly. Sure, and PLEX then were only used for game time.
FFS, it isnât free. AgainâŚ
PLEX player: Trades time for ISK, then trades ISK for PLEX, uses PLEX to obtain Omega status.
Me: I trade time for RL money, I then trade that RL money for Omega status.
Notice something else in there? There is no third party.
NobodyâŚ
CCP is not going to care about this anymore than if they care about some random guy walking down the street in the US. Not because CCP are nothing but a collection of jerks and assholes, but because they canât careâŚjust like you canât care. This needs to stop. We canât fix the worldâs problems via CCP.
No. Most of them have jobs and can afford to save $0.5/day. Hell they can probably find that by going through the couch cushions, their pockets, etc. Lets stop pretending that $15 is alot of money. It is notâŚespecially when we are talking about people trading 30, 40 or 50 hours a month to get a PLEX.
Botting may be a component of the demand for PLEX but it is not âwhat drives demandâ.
Unless you are botting and killing rats, in which case there is de novo ISK creation.
OMGâŚ
And economic illiteracy can be spewedâŚI should stop looking in here it makes me sad.
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FYI it is called inflection point 
Iâm going to say it againâŚ
If you canât walk into your home/apartment/whatever and take $1/day and put it into a jar, box, envelope, whatever, and then after 30 days, pay for a sub for 30 days, with an extra $15 ready for the next monthâŚand you are instead trying to convert 30-60 hours of âleisure timeâ into ISK for a PLEXâŚyou are literally doing it wrong.
Think about itâŚplease, even if it hurtsâŚlets take the mid point of 30-60 hours and say 45 hours. You are trying to convert 45 hours into something that costs $15. That is you are doing something that works out to $0.33/hour.
Now some might think, âHey, $0.33/hour is less than $0.5/hour.â Yes that is true. But that does not imply you are getting a good deal. It suggests that your reservation wage is $0.33/hour. That is youâd be indifferent between taking a job that paid $0.33/hour or not taking it. Chances are you are working at a job where you get paid more than thatâŚalot more than that, like say 3,000% more. You could take that same hour and, in theory earn, $10. A reservation wage of $0.33/hour means you think your time has extremely little value and that you are nearly completely useless. Another way to see thisâŚyou are essentially working a full days worth of work for $15. You are getting âpaidâ about as much as a typical homeless person in Los Angeles who is washing car windshields. Stop.
SeriouslyâŚcan people please go read up on opportunity cost and realize it applies to your time too. In fact, time is your most precious commodity. When you are out of time thatâs it you get no more. You go into the ground forever.
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The yearly numbers take into account seasonal trends. They also take both highs and lows into account.
Iâm not seeing a steady increase and if winter is supposed to be the peak, this winter weâve just had is looking very low.
And it looks like about 40,000 characters were made during the two days alpha started. 40,000!!.
How many stuck around?
So post the correct ones.
Except it was stable before.
3% isnât what Iâd call significant. And that 3% hasnât lasted either.
Is it?
Iâd say; if it was alphas driving destruction/content the activity spike from late 2016 that is clearly alphas and lasts about 6months should be somewhat mirrored by the destruction graph. The alpha spike in activity is an increase of around 60% whereas the destruction graph gets a small bump of 25% for that same period. And thatâs assuming the alpha spike is the main driving force for that increase in destruction but it actually may not be. Looking at production and mining at the same time it could instead be rorquals coming out of pos shields, making loads of capitals and, if i remember correctly, goons deployed in the north.
So it isnât what i expected. The impression was that alphas would lead to a lot more content. Carefree players leeroying fleets. But if the typical demands made by alphas on the forums are anything to go by, alphas are mostly interested in ratting, mining and being immune to pvp.
So Iâm not convinced theyâve been the game changer they were intended to be. I think instead theyâve given vets an excuse to play for free.
How often?
I think youâve got it backwards. I agree with the previous poster. Summers do tend to be quiet and winter more active. In fact the beginning of the year looks like itâs often the most active time historically.
Player growth, yes. Content growth, maybe. Money growth, maybe.
My argument is that it doesnât seem like any of these is happening. Long term looks like the opposite.
Worth remembering that BDO is notoriously pay2win. âFreeâ to play in BDO is different to free to play in eve. Maybe thatâs what you mean by ccp failing to capitalise on a free to play model. You want more monetizing. But those games donât last.
The difference between us dinosaurs and you is that we like the game and want it to last more than we want ccp to ruin the product and move onto a new project after this one has been sucked dry.
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You two are an obvious example of why the West is falling 
As opposed to what? Lol.
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When your product costs nothing, you will not be attracting people who respect value.
How anyone could assume theyâd be decent people is beyond my understanding. My assumption is that âcorporateâ is completely disconnected from reality thanks to buzzwords like âmore accessibleâ, combined with the horrible idea that fooling people into a pleasant experience leads to happy customers.
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Do you know why youâre not seeing it?! Because we didnât have any new sensational changes such as the introduction of Alpha accounts to cause a major attraction. And when you can understand this then youâll understand how the lack of such changes makes it look low.
Itâs then an uphill battle for CCP. It needs constant effort by them to keep the game fresh and to attract new players, or these simply stop coming. It means that no single change can ever provide an ever-lasting growth. All changes to the game only have a temporary effect on its attractiveness. It can be seen in the ânew playerâ numbers, how these always steadily decrease even after a major change was introduced, as well as on the online numbers when the annual peaks turn out to be rather low.
CCP is however continuously working to keep the game attractive to all players, even when one not always agrees with it. I then donât find the changes to war decs sensational, but I do expect these to have a more lasting effect and to cause a more steady growth of the player numbers.
Ideally should CCP move away from creating annual peaks (although it can sometimes not be avoided), and focus more on creating profound changes. When the game is healthy should players be able to create attractions on their own, without a need for CCP to do it for them with each new year.
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Players that like eve but simply cannot afford the game are likely a small minority of alphas.
My feeling is that the majority of alphas just donât like eve enough to pay. And will never commit to eve without the devs changing core design principles.
Moving toward monetization and pay2win might make alphas more successful (Iâm talking about buying gnossis for RL money so alphas can regularly fly ships that allow them to compete with omega, and imagine soe weapons/mods that require no skills but have the power of T2 @All5). But that will surely be met with outcry from the current playersâŚfor now.
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