Well I was thinking of a farm with a single character being farmed. With maxed out attributes and implants there is a maximal amount of SP you’ll get per day and thus per 30 day period, lets just call it a month even though a month is really 365/12 or approximately 30.4 days. So I need an upper limit of extractors and will produce an upper limit on injectors. So, assuming I buy the extractors with PLEX then I am not seeing how the presences of an SP farm would cause a problem with PLEX prices except for possible a one time bump in the price (when the farmer enters the PLEX market).
What we are seeing here is a steady trend in the price of PLEX. And it seems to me that the narrative it is SP farms is the cause would be dubious. It might cause this issue if (and only if) there were an increasing number of SP farms that are run purely off of the PLEX. For example, I have two characters I farm SP off of. I am happy with their SP in their current state so I extract the SP every 30ish days or so to sell for ISK. I then use that ISK for doing other stuff in game (that is, I do not buy any PLEX anymore with this ISK and I pay their subscriptions with RL money). This is possible, but I find it unlikely, or at least there is not much evidence for it. And no, the rising PLEX price is not evidence because then you’ve created circular reasoning. To see this is so…
PLEX prices are rising because of PLEX SP farmers (PLEX SP farmers are SP farmers who run entirely on PLEX unlike myself).
What is the evidence for this?
PLEX prices are rising.
That’s a circle of reason. It is useless.
The actual run up in PLEX prices is likely due to the slow drop in the number of PLEX On the market in The Forge. I downloaded the market data for 366 days and did some regressions and yes, the number of PLEX for sale on the market has slowly been decreasing. By about 800-900 PLEX per day. I did three regressions with similar results for the trend variable (which is always statistically significant).
Now as to why there is this downward trend, I don’t know. I can think of two possible narratives.
We have momentum trading and as the price goes up players who might sell PLEX via sell orders are holding off from entering the market in hopes of getting a higher price (maybe even via buy orders–i.e. liquidating their position quickly).
The number of people who are buying PLEX for RL money and selling them in game via sell orders are buying and selling less PLEX. Why? I don’t know. One possibility is they don’t feel they’ll be able to recoup their “investment” so they have exited the market. For example, suppose they believe that CCP shutters its operations sometime in the next N months.
The two above narratives are just that though. They are both, IMO, consistent with what we are seeing in terms of the PLEX price. Both could even be true to varying degrees at the same time. And there could be other reasons too.
In a few more weeks, if I remember, I’ll get more data an append the new observations to the data I currently have and see if anything changes.
I made a post recently about how to move my incursion ships to jita 4-4 so I could sell them to get omega.
I screwed up, big time, I should have checked PLEX prices first. 2.1bil? It was 1.1/1.2 when I left. I checked in with my old incursion running buddies, they are still making the same amount. They said there has been huge inflation because of a few super players that largely control the economy and are able to PLEX 8 - 20 accounts for in-game isk, some by botting. He said only a very small amount of players can keep up with the inflation rate. I don’t know the truth of this, but I do know this is disgraceful.
I am not going to sell every asset I have so some superpower with trillions of isk can play for free. And I feel like I’m getting screwed by having to save up and pay real money for a PLEX while some botter plays for free.
These people should not be able to control the PLEX economy like this, especially when so much wealth is concentrated in so few hands – and all those people isk-plex their account.
I’ve played Eve since '07 and this is the first time (and hopefully last time) I’ll ever say this.
This is absolutely shameful and needs to be remedied. A disgusting situation. Get your ■■■■ together CCP.
One month of game time is €15 in my country. If you buy more you can get down to €11 for a whole year. There is no right to be able to afford PLEX ingame to play for free. This is first a subscription based game.
Correct, it is a subscription based game. Which is why individuals should not be able to play for free with 8 - 20 accounts while others save up to pay for 1 account for 1 month.
Everyone should have to pay for omega. No more PLEX on the market. Its frigging stupid. If I could swear I would; this pisses me off.
PLEX has changed. 500 of todays plex is equivalent to one old plex. So when plex is on the market for 4.2million it costs 2.1billion isk for 30 days play time. (i see you changed that now)
Plex prices are decided by supply/demand. The ‘disgusting’ situation is because the there are lots of players like you who want to play for free, and lots of players like me who want to hoard plex because the price is going one way.
Ccp are always keeping an eye on plex price and constantly at war with bots. Also plex were discussed during the last csm minutes so it’s not like plex prices are being ignored. But you have to understand, there is no ‘set isk value’ for plex. It could be 10billion, and if players are willing to pay, they’ll pay.
And here’s the big question, If they took plex off the market, how are you going to play for free? What in fact would be the point in a Pilots License EXtension if players couldn’t buy them in game off players who bought them off CCP?
You know about skill trading? You can sell “surplus” SP to help funding your chars. Hence people’s alt accounts can be kept Omega for almost no costs, if you sell all accumulated SP over the month.
You don’t play for free as omega. That needs to be stopped. If you want omega, you pay $15 a month like everyone else. You wanna play for free? Alpha is there for you.
You have a choice to completely ignore the price of plex. Pay for your sub and it doesn’t matter how high plex prices go, it doesn’t affect you.
Why disrupt other peoples ability to play for free if they grind enough? Why deny peoples ability to make extra isk by buying plex off ccp and selling it on the market?
Paying cash for plex to then turn it into game time is exactly the same as paying a sub but more expensive and with extra steps. Why would that benefit any player?
Are you serious? Then go ratting in Delve, or be more clever with ISK making. 2B per month is still a trivial amount with today’s ISK making options, and ratting is only one, and definitely not the best.
CCP taking control is the only reasonbale solution…if not the prices will know only one way : up and in time even the wonderous delve isk making possibilities will not be enough…