“We really like PLEX because it lets you players in the in-game market decide what trade-offs you want to make between time, isk, and real money,” CCP Seagull explains in a new video today. “It also gives us at CCP a type of income that doesn’t mess with the integrity of the game design.” The overhaul won’t impact that philosophy, but here’s what is changing:
PLEX will be broken down into smaller chunks; one current PLEX, worth around $15 or 30 days of sub time, will now work out to 500 new PLEX, which is intended to allow players more flexibility in trade and allow CCP to effectively sell smaller sub lengths (although it has not announced its intention to do this) as well as smaller items in the cash shop using PLEX as currency.
Possibly of more interest to non-EVE players is the fact that the new PLEX Vault in the player inventory will allow players to move PLEX without actually putting it in their ships. No more wacky stories about people losing thousands of dollars’ worth of PLEX while dragging them in ships across the galaxy!
“The PLEX Vault will allow you to move PLEX safely throughout the universe rather than having to move it in a ship. It will still be possible to carry it in a ship like any other item if you want, so if you have an urge to fill a shuttle full of PLEX and tour low sec just drag PLEX out of the vault and into your cargo and you’re good to go. We know how much you love it when ships blow up with piles of PLEX inside, we even might understand why, but, we also don’t want new PLEX users to be losing their PLEX before they can trade it because they didn’t know how to get to market safely.”
Aurum is also being done away with and will be converted to PLEX at a rate of 1 PLEX per 7 Aurum. This will likely affect the price of PLEX on the current market, so the devs are warning players to expect volatility in the short-term until it stabilizes.
“We will keep a careful eye on things and be ready to intervene in other ways if necessary to protect the PLEX ecosystem and your investments in it,” the studio promises.
I see it both ways. Electronic commerce is clearly here to stay. But on the other hand, economies are based on value, so at some point you’ve got some kind of material wealth that backs it, and yup, such things can get torched by raiders, Mother Nature, Fate, equipment malfunctions, etc….
I’m a non-player, so be gentle :)
Something doesn’t add up. Say I play 60-90 minutes per day. That means each day the first thing I do is buy gametime with one PLEX.
Why should I buy 500 PLEX to have a 30 day 24 hour sub, which I don’t use 24h/day?
That would be a waste of PLEX!
I don’t know how prices are fluctuating now but in the past:
Subscribed (now Omega) players earn skill points 24×7, online or not.
You could buy items and use them to extract your skill points. I.e. once you configured your toon, a minute or two a month of effort would be ISK positive, you earn more than your sub. I.e. your offline skill training has value, to someone else if not you.
Will the PLEX vault eliminate the option of putting an in-game item in your hold and undocking with it?
I’m just curious if the vault will be the only way to handle PLEX, and the in-game “physical” item won’t even exist, or if the vault is just a feature you can use to handle your PLEX, but you could also be an idiot and hop through Rancer with a cargo hold full of them anyway.
Because if someone can, they will. Not saying that’s bad. Just wondering.
Out of curiosity, is Brendan planning on doing a writeup of his take on this? As a non-player (though I did get it fully installed last month! Just…too lazy to get around to booting it up), I’m mixed on this. On the one hand, more flexibility in monetization is great! Allowing people to lower their IRL financial risk when transporting is good, too! But it may also mean fewer fun stories about massive losses etc.
So as an outsider, definitely interested in reading some thoughts from some hardcore EVE folks.
You will still have stories of massive losses, just not the dumb boring ones about a guy in crap shuttle getting killed and losing the Plex, the ships and station still have values that can be converted into real moneys( thousands of dollars in some cases), which is where most of the losses come from.
Did I read this right? 1 today PLEX = 500 tomorrow PLEXes? How is this not confusing? So a PLEX can now buy you what? 8 hours of gametime?
Closer to 90 minutes, I would think.
30 days = 720 hours / 500 = 1.44 hours per PLEX if they keep it normal but likely will either gain or lose some value (IE: Go up to 90 minutes like Rheem said or go down to 60 minutes or other variations).
Don’t play the game but, FINALLY someone offering smaller sub lengths.
So the way the video makes it sound and the game screen in the video, you still need $15 worth of “Plex” to buy a 30 day sub, but you can now buy $2 of “Plex” for other micro transactions, or maybe shop around and buy a couple of bucks worth at one station and a couple of bucks at a different station if they’re cheaper and combine them to buy a 30 day sub. She doesn’t specifically say anything about buying smaller subs. I went and watched it because I was curious.
Thanks for the clarification.
…Oh well, i can always emigrate, i mean everyone wants foreigners in their country right? :P
Hm, even so I like this in a way where a player can casually pick up PLEX in smaller bits over time. The all-in-one buy has always been a little less of a motivation for less hardcore players. Doesn’t change much overall aside from providing a few more carrots along the way to visualize one’s progression toward that sweet PLEX month.
Prior to this, players could just accumulate the billion-ish ISK over time in smaller bits. Unless you are trying to market-time when you buy your PLEX, it would be more flexible to keep all your ISK as ISK until you are ready to buy a whole one.
I look at it the other way around though. I don’t need a 100 million ISK (I don’t know what the current exchange rate is, making up numbers) at $20, but instead I can spend a $1 and buy five million ISK or whatever. This is said as someone who was never good at making money, but bought and sold a Plex to buy my stupid T2 Battleship so I could blow shit up instead of spending my life farming ore. It’s more of a “micro” transaction, heh.
Won’t the lack of risk in transporting PLEX reduce its value to some degree?
Yeah, it seems weird the idea of buying a Plex in one place and then just logging out and onto a different character somewhere else to resell it instead of actually having to move it. Seems like that might break the economy a wee little bit, maybe, possibly (somebody will find a way). Guess we’ll see.
I’m not a huge fan of this element. PLEX being a target for pirates and carrying risk to transport was pretty much the core of what EVE is.
Except that you could redeem it wherever you wanted. If you wanted to sell PLEX in Jita, just log into a neutral toon in Jita and get it there. If you wanted to consume one, your alt could buy it in Jita and consume it. IDK, but I did not think there were many cases where PLEXes were being moved by non-idiots.
So basically this is a non-change. Just a streamlining.
There was never any reason to transport it other than to get blown up and make a big news story out of it.
Coulda used this salt BEFORE the storm the other day. Bad timing by CCP.