Steam accounts and PLEX purchase fails

Communications Center General Discussion
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Well, to make a long story short due to various issues stretching from personal to corporate and government bureaucracy, to international differences, my single method of paying for Omega is by buying PLEX through Steam. I have no credit card and cannot get one. Same with debit cards.

Looking at past topics, I may be the only person in 2020 still getting Plex through Steam. But now I find its not working. I bought the PLEX at Steam and it never arrived in my PLEX vault in EVE.

The whole thing already had a very strict procedure or it would fail. And the first time I did it, it did fail, and no refund. So I researched and thought and did this and that and got it to work, risking more money in the process. Been doing that ever since.

Well this time, I knew I messed up the procedure. And POOF, my money vanishes into someone’s pocket. So I tried again doing it “correctly” but POOF, money gone again. I won’t be trying a third time.

I already know that Steam is going to give me the run around same as they did the first time I asked for service. I have a support ticket with CCP and we will see what happens. But I have NEVER in my life had a positive experience with customer support so, uh, no hope riding on this whatsoever.

It also seems that Steam has a new and direct method of getting Omega which is getting HUGE complaints over on Steam. They don’t Omega your old account, not even your Steam generated Alpha. What they do is make you a completely fresh Omega account starting from zero. Utterly crazy. Further this new method might explain why the old method of buying PLEX is not working. For all I know, CCP cancelled Plex from Steam, but Steam is still selling it anyway. I don’t know.

But my advice is don’t buy anything from Steam related to EVE unless you come back here and I say its all good. And if that happens I will explain the proper procedure as best I can because the Steam pages on it are worse than useless.

But I won’t be playing EVE without Omega. I did not just lay down my ISK fortune to watch my new T3 ship collect dust in the damn hangar.

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Sucks, mate. Hope you get it sorted out.

Steam has always been garbage for this and I don’t know why people keep making accounts through it. EVE’s standalone client exists and has been so much more reliable since EVE’s entire history for PLEX / Omega time purchases. You can even link it to Amazon’s purchases (you can’t do that with an EVE account made through Steam).

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As I said, I have zero other options for getting Omega. None. Zip. Zero. Or I never would have fooled with it. Its been two things only to me. 1) a means to Omega. 2) a big fat frakking headache.

For other people, they use Steam for a million other games. Steam is really a great platform for so many things. Why would they think EVE would be different? Its not like they have written on their pages “Everything on Steam is wonderful, EXCEPT EVE…We have been messing that up since day one and have no plans to improve at all. Enjoy!” You just don’t know until you know, you know?

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EVE’s Steam integration has always been complete and total garbage and has always been so since its inception. You’d think over the span of ten or so years it would have improved, but nope! The EVE client is slower and less reliable through Steam, and Steam EVE accounts have numerous complications that regular EVE accounts don’t have. This is why I recommend to my friends never to buy/play EVE through Steam, and if they already have a Steam EVE account to follow the instructions on the support page to convert it into a regular EVE account and play EVE through the regular EVE client freely downloadable from EVE’s website. Unfortunately this won’t address your very unusual payment limitations restricting you to Steam.

It’s not difficult to generate enough ISK through casual gameplay (a few hours here and there) to buy PLEX, though. I mean, some players net more than 1B/hr from solo PVE. From abyssals you can net more than 150m/hr.

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Exactly. And from what I remember, there’s really no way to separate your Steam EVE account and switch it over to CCP’s standalone EVE stuff either. I don’t know if they’ve changed that process since I last heard about it, but given their history, I doubt it.

All it does is leave people with the only other option being pay $20 in PLEX to have their character transferred to a standalone account that’s separate from Steam. And that just seems like a kick in the face while you’re already down.

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This was possible over 10 years ago. This is what I did when I first got and played EVE for the first time. I very quickly converted it into a normal account and played on the standalone client shortly afterward.

Also on the support page are other Steam-related articles:

https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004526305-Steam-Wallet
https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016932219-Steam-Error-We-are-currently-in-the-process-of-creating-your-EVE-account-Please-try-again-in-a-few-minutes-

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My experience was a nightmare and I gave up after a week or so of trying. But I guess it’s neat they have some support pages about it. Hope others have a better experience than I did.

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Personally played EVE through Steam for like a year without issues then switched to the standalone in a matter of minutes and had no issue with the switching / conversion process nor the standalone client either. (Note: Still could play through Steam if wanted to as well at least on my original account.)

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Can you start EVE by pressing the “Play” button in the Steam client?

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Was a long time I did that but yes last time I checked (after converting) I could.

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I see that on one computer I have it works, but on another it doesn’t. Its a super common complaint for Steam users that it won’t work for them.

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No idea personally I never had an issue with the Steam version.

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You could buy Plex through a 3rd party reseller.

Greenman Gaming for example allows Paysafe Cards

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I don’t know if it will help me, but I found that for some reason I have EVE installed in three separate locations. This may have caused the disconnect between Steam and CCP despite the fact I launched Eve from within the Steam App, albeit using the “browse local files” menu due to necessity. I renamed the two non-Steam downloads and booted the Steam launcher and am now getting a massive update I was not before. This may be closing the barn door after the horse has bolted though. The plex probably bounced once, maybe even twice then vanished in the ether. Could even be the bouncing was stopped by a technician who would rather leave work on time than contact customer support about some guy’s lost plex. Damn this download is huge. (sigh)

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I know you mean well, but no more of my money is going on a test run of some new potential fail until the money I already lost is recovered

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So I have zero experience with Steam + EVE + PLEX, so I don’t know the mechanics. If you are unable to get a CC etc how are you doing this? Buying Steam gift cards with cash?

If so, and obviously country dependent you could buy amazon gift cards and buy plex there. You would have to switch your account to a standalone eve client probably first.

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That’s understandable, Mate. I can feel your pain.

Once you’re done downloading and logged in also check “alt-y” (Redeem Items) for the Plex.

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  1. Get your life sorted out, before you start playing games, I’ve met street urchins with visa.

  2. Western union and others facilitate cash transfer to visa transaction you hace zero excuse unless you live in antartica.

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No you haven’t.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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Grow a brain before you start giving advice. What part of “international” confused you? I live in Japan. We don’t have Western Union.

As for no excuse, you don’t know me or what my situation is. If you had a half a brain you would realize that.

Now, would you like my life story so you might have a leg to stand on to advise me on my life? Well don’t hold your breath waiting for me to write that novel. Or do. See if I care.

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