On two separate occasions, I’ve been invited to a convo with a corp mate, where said pilot sheepishly admitted to buying PLEX to fund some in-game activity. Both times they were sorta asking for permission / seeing if it was cool. Initially I was just amused, but considering my long-standing and very public rants about buying power in MMOs, it makes sense.
Only I don’t find buying PLEX in EVE as buying power. PLEX is not the gold ammo of EVE. It’s not even buying epics in a game like EQ2. It’s just skipping ahead, sorta.
“But SynCaine, you always say ISK is power, and PLEX = ISK!”
Both true. ISK is power, and PLEX is ISK.
But simply having ISK is not power itself. I could buy enough PLEX today to buy a pilot with a Titan. Do I insta-win EVE? Nope. What I do win is a shamemail. And however many thousands of dollars it would take to get said pilot/Titan flushed down the drain. And make no mistake about it, I would show up in a shamemail real fast, considering I have zero clue when it comes to piloting a Titan.
I could buy enough PLEX to ‘finish’ my mission-running Navy Raven. Officer fitted like a beast baby. Do I win EVE? Nope. Sure I can now run missions slightly faster, which gets me more ISK, but I also paint a giant target on my back, asking to get suicide-ganked or my corp to get war-decced. And a large part of my current in-game activity/fun is making ISK to upgrade that Navy Raven. Not going to Officer fit it, but some additional Faction mods would not hurt. But again, goals are what motivate me in EVE. Paying extra to have a goal wiped out for me is only slightly counter-productive IMO.
The general rule in EVE is that if you have more ISK than you know what to do with, EVE will fix that problem for you shortly. The easiest way to avoid that is to pace yourself, and only fly/attempt things you are ready for. PLEX will technically allow you to press fast-forward, but only from an ISK standpoint. You can’t convert PLEX into in-game knowledge, and that is far more important than the ISK itself. Combine this with the fact that nothing in EVE is permanent, and that the bigger the target, the more likely it is to get hit, and buying PLEX to fast-forward is not likely to get you the result you envisioned.
As for my corp-mates, what they used the ISK for was, in the grand scheme of things, very minor. Neither purchased significantly impacted the corp or their own game, and neither purchase pushed the limits of what they were doing. At the end of the day, the converted a few bucks into a few hours of in-game time.
Are they more ‘powerful’ now than pre-purchase? No. Not in gold ammo terms. Or permanent upgrades/boosts terms. Are they where they would be in a month, assuming unchanged timetables and gameplay? Yup. Could they instead of buying PLEX just played EVE more/better to get the same result. Yup.
Somewhat related, I’m always amused that non-EVE players consider accounts funded by PLEX as “not real subscribers”, in the same way that non-EVE players discount EVE’s total subscriber base by pointing out that people have multiple accounts.
One PLEX costs more than one month of directly purchased game time (significantly more if you use the 1yr sub payment option).
An account funded by PLEX is bringing in more than $15 a month for CCP.
What other subscription game can say that?
Hardcore Casual 
But! But! But! Syncaine! If I sell a PLEX then I can buy a bunch of Domination EMP L. See!? Gold Ammo!
It’s this kind of sarcasm that gets certain people all confused.
Like you know next month/post someone is going to point out that you can convert PLEX into gold ammo in EVE, and that I said you could do it.
My apologies Dear Leader,
Remember folks, everything in EVE is available to everyone whether you earn it through play time or you’re wallet.
Except for Domination ammo. Good fucking luck finding that for any price.
Send a scout down to where the Domination Angels issue missions. Scout the undock and see who’s running missions. Make them an offer.
Anything is possible in Eve :)
Technically, it is green ammo! ;)
How do you (legally) buy Epics in EQ2?
EQExchange?
I’d never heard of that so I googled it. Appears to be some kind of illegal site. As far as I know, there’s currently no legal means of buying anything in EQ2 other than what SOE sells in the SC Store and that has never included any combat gear or weapons on the Live servers and only some very basic gear on the old EQ2X server. Since the F2P conversion even that has gone.
The two LiveGamer servers allowed legal paid trades between players, but as far as I know Epics/Mythicals are No Trade items. You could of course have bought an entire character there legally, kitted out with the best gear available. But the LiveGamer servers have now gone, too.
Probably more information than you wanted, but I don’t think current EQ2 is a good example of a game in which you can legally buy advantage. Interestingly, when the servers on which you certainly could do that existed, they became two of the least populated servers in the game.
“PLEX will technically allow you to press fast-forward, but only from an ISK standpoint.”
A more interesting way to fast-forward, for a new player, might be to buy PLEX, convert it to ISK, and then use some of the proceeds to buy some +5 implants. 100 million or so a piece, according to the eve-central market browser. That way you can fast-forward your bank balance and also fast-forward your skill training.
The actual in-game knowledge, however, you still need to acquire the hard way, hoho.
I agree verily,
I’ve noticed that brand new players that by PLEX, tend to be more lost than they were before. Without that formative “poor” period you face somewhere in the end of the 1st month to about 2 or 2 1/2 months, you don’t really have the experience to effectively spend that money. Putting in your poor time lets you learn how to effectively apply isk, without putting too much foolishly at risk.
But, then again, when you see that corp fly by in their Navy Faction shinny, it is tempting to want to GET IT NOW!
Which makes me wonder…If you suddenly had a PLEX, what would you spend it on?
…And you can’t say the Cleveland Cavaliers…
I always enjoy random references to Super Troopers.
How exactly does PLEX bring in money for CCP? Isn’t it an advance payment of subs rather than a new revenue source?
Gamer 1 buys a plex from CCP for cash. Gamer 2 buys the plex from Gamer 1 for ISK instead of paying cash for the subscription. Net cash result for CCP = zero.
Isn’t that right?
Gamer 1 in your example is basically paying for 2 subscriptions (plus a little more, plex cost slightly more than 1 month of game time). Additionally, if Gamer 2 could not otherwise afford to play, the Plex system keeps them in game, which is good for everyone since players are basically content in Eve.
Kobea said it, but to put it simply:
Player 1 has already paid his subscription for the month, by purchasing a PLEX, he has then also paid CCP for a second month.
No matter what happens to that PLEX, CCP gets that extra 15 dollars. If the PLEX gets destroyed (it’s a in game item) then CCP still holds that 15$ without having to provide a service.*
If everybody stops playing on normal subscriptions and turns to PLEX (impossible but imagining) then CCP is making more money than they would regularly due to the price of PLEX.
All in all it was a sort of masterful stroke for which ever CCP marketing team dreamed it up.
* http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/08/08/eve-player-destroys-over-1000-worth-of-game-time/
Curious about your stance on buying characters in EVE and where that fits into your balance of ‘buying power’.
Different version of hitting fast forward. Instead of buying a 1yr sub and just playing EVE Offline, someone can buy a pilot with 1yrs worth of SP, generally in the direction they want the SP assigned. Still have to know what to do with that pilot to be successful, and you can only buy pilots people are willing to sell (so you can’t, for example, buy a ‘maxed out’ pilot, no matter how much money you intend to spend).
Also lots of “burned alts” from a big corp heist, etc, are for sale, regardless of skills. You may find a “great deal” with all the SP you want and fairly cheap too… only to find that NOBODY will let you in their corp cause that toon was used for theft/awoxing/etc. ;-)
I totally agree for what it is worth. I was just curious as that is usually the first thing I get pounced on with when the PLEX conversation crops up. I think EVE has hit a really really nice balance with both PLEX and character sales, and as long as the Aurum thing never transitions from fluff to gold bullets I will keep supporting CCP and EVE.
Thanks for your write up – one of your best blog posts in my opinion.
Best way to start eve if you are into pvp:
Buy 1-2 Plex, sell them, buy +3 implants (+5 need high skills just to insert them and are to expensive if you want to pvp) and all the skillsbooks you need in the beginning. Than train basic learnings and pvp skillset for a rifter in about 7-10 days while reading, reading, reading about eve and pvp(if you know how to fit ships better than most several year old players after 2 weeks you did this part right) and learning the basics of control in eve (just flying some lvl 1/2 missions, not for the ISK but for learning to control your ship).
Now you buy a rifter, with good equipment (as far as skillwise possible i.e. best named etc.) pvpfitting and start roaming lowsec and canflipping in highsec. Ppl will see your just some days old and think your a noob, so they will attack you and, because most of the time they are the noobs, die horribly or if they win you just learned how to fight a bit better (you have to get used to this adrenaline rush as soon as the fight starts)
Now you start improving your basic pvp skills and start learning to fly an intercepter. Once you reached this point and have some pvp kills on your killboard you join up with a medium sized small-scale-pvp-corp of veterans (if you show them you are really into pvp they will gladly take you and sponser you) and you will be deep inside the most intense pvp eve has to offer within just 2-3 months.
Spending the first 1 or 2 weeks reading about eve gameplay/optimisation is going to be far more benefiting in the long run than flying around trying to earn money with lvl 1 missions in the first weeks.
Of course this way might not be the way for everyone…i did it and it worked great (but im coming from a old UO-“play to crush”-mindset)
http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/combat_record.php?type=player&name=Taris+Tyrell&page=39#kills
first kill was with under 2 weeks of playtime…
Thats why PLEX are great :-) after several months i had enough skills to easily earn enough ISK to buy PLEX in-game and get the money i invested in the beginning “back”.
Man…i should resubscribe…