When I still played EVE, my experience was that some pvp'ers bough isk so they didnt have to run missions/mine etc. It didn't give them any advantage in fights anyway.
So what about that guy that has the skills and buys an endless supply of ships for his corp war?
You still only fly one at a time, so for a fight it doesn't give you an advantage. But the PLEX bought you time though, because you don't have to run missions or any other ingame activity to earn back isk if you lose the ship.
You can purchase unlimited amount of Plex for real money, so if you wanted you could buy anything.
But what about the argument you need to train in real time to learn skills? All you have to do is pay your monthly subscription, login occasionally to train skills, and with enough time ( and subscription fees) have any skill you want.
How can anyone try to justify this game not being pay to win? It is no better than any other pay to win game out there and in many ways it is worse because they suck as much money as possible in monthly fees along the journey.
You know why everyone justifies that eve is not pay-to-win?
Because everyone in the game wants you to sell PLEX for isk and buy a lot of stuff, also everyone in the game really want you to buy that character from the character bazar. Why because with all your 'I-win' items and 'I-win' character, you will suck badly, because 'I-win' items and 'I-win' characters don't give enough advantage in the game to overcome experience.
Everything in eve is about the person, not the character's he plays. You know what happens when a veteran player start training a fresh character with no skills and a small T1-fit frigate and asks to join a PvP ops with that character? He will be invited immediately because his experience is so important in the battle field that no one cares what he flies.
Did you know all ships in eve are balanced? A large ship against a small ship will end up in a stalemate; the big ship cannot hit the small ship, the small ship cannot do enough damage, however the small ship can stop the large ship from doing anything. Therefor in PvP all ships are important.
"Pay to Win" normally refers to when someone can gain advances when spending real money on ingame items over those who don't, not when people earn ingame credits by playing and working hard at earning it, which anyone can do and most people would aim to achieve anyway in order to get anywhere within the game. I think its great that CCP even give the option for those kind of players to continue their subscription without the need to pay with real money.
I always hear Eve being hailed as the shining beacon of subscription MMO hope. But, I looked into this plex thing...
Is it true I can just buy all the Plex I want with my credit card and then sell it in game to become crazy rich? That seems at least somewhat pay to win...they are basically being their own gold sellers.
Yes it is pay to win... Because if you don't pay you can not play and thus not win... =P
Beyond that i do not think there is any game that rewards long time comitment as well as Eve. I'd say it is the exact opposite of the traditional P2W.
Originally posted by someforumguy Originally posted by NitthSo what about that guy that has the skills and buys an endless supply of ships for his corp war?
You still only fly one at a time, so for a fight it doesn't give you an advantage. But the PLEX bought you time though, because you don't have to run missions or any other ingame activity to earn back isk if you lose the ship.
But looking at it by scale, Wars could be won when competitors have more ships for fodder.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Originally posted by NitthSo what about that guy that has the skills and buys an endless supply of ships for his corp war?
You still only fly one at a time, so for a fight it doesn't give you an advantage. But the PLEX bought you time though, because you don't have to run missions or any other ingame activity to earn back isk if you lose the ship.
But looking at it by scale, Wars could be won when competitors have more ships for fodder.
Each of those Rokhs costs 300M ISK. Megas are about the same. Carriers are 2 bill or more. It would cost thousands of dollars to PLEX the replacements for those ships, and that's just one battle in the war.
In the reality of the game, EVE's "winners" buy PLEX for ISK to save money, they don't buy PLEX for money to sell for ISK.
The most precious and powerful commodity in Eve isn't ISK - it's time.
It takes time to become the most powerful person in Eve. The most powerful person in Eve is The Mittani without any doubt whatsoever.
It must have taken a lot of time and dedication to do this.
ISK is potentially infinite. However, time is not - time is a limited resource - we eventually run out of it and die.
So the question that the OP should be asking is: "Do I really want to be the 'best' (most powerful) in Eve, or is my passion in life something else?"
At best, an infinite amount of ISK might get you to become one of The Mittani's leutenants, but only a massive expense of time would make you more powerful than The Mittani.
I lol'ed
Mittens hardly ever plays the game! The only reason that he is famous is because of an incident that happens years ago in which he barely played a part in. I.e. the disbanding of BOB. Prior to that he was just a grunt that was high up on the the slippery ladder of goonfleet.
PS. You can officially buy a skilled character from other player too as long as you give a cut to CCP.
And if you don't know how to "use" said character... if you don't know how to outfit a ship correctly... if you don't belong to a decent corp... that character isn't going to do you much good.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Let me take this time to say thank you to the people who use PLEX to buy the biggest ship with the most expensive mods thinking this will somehow mean they'll win. You guys make our killboards looks great!
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Originally posted by dave6660 Let me take this time to say thank you to the people who use PLEX to buy the biggest ship with the most expensive mods thinking this will somehow mean they'll win. You guys make our killboards looks great!
a big expensive ship is usually known by the term 'primary target' because expensive ships do look a lot more interesting on killmails than some random guy in a rifter, but yeah, those who go into Eve thinking its Pay to Win usually end up as padding on someone elses killboard
Originally posted by Malcanis Originally posted by NitthOriginally posted by someforumguyOriginally posted by NitthSo what about that guy that has the skills and buys an endless supply of ships for his corp war?
You still only fly one at a time, so for a fight it doesn't give you an advantage. But the PLEX bought you time though, because you don't have to run missions or any other ingame activity to earn back isk if you lose the ship. But looking at it by scale, Wars could be won when competitors have more ships for fodder.
Each of those Rokhs costs 300M ISK. Megas are about the same. Carriers are 2 bill or more. It would cost thousands of dollars to PLEX the replacements for those ships, and that's just one battle in the war.
In the reality of the game, EVE's "winners" buy PLEX for ISK to save money, they don't buy PLEX for money to sell for ISK.
Thats not the issue here, The issue is: "Does plex provide mechanism to get an advantage."
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Thats not the issue here, The issue is: "Does plex provide mechanism to get an advantage."
Nope, and anyone who'd have spent more than a month in the game would realize this. The time it takes to get those skills up to be good in those types of fights you'll have amassed more than enough ISK to replace those ships. Had you not, and were poorly skilled, then even those 100 ships you bought with ISK converted PLEX will only clutter the battlefield as they explode just like the first one.
The advantage would be to the salvagers afterwards.
Originally posted by NitthSo what about that guy that has the skills and buys an endless supply of ships for his corp war?
You still only fly one at a time, so for a fight it doesn't give you an advantage. But the PLEX bought you time though, because you don't have to run missions or any other ingame activity to earn back isk if you lose the ship.
But looking at it by scale, Wars could be won when competitors have more ships for fodder.
Each of those Rokhs costs 300M ISK. Megas are about the same. Carriers are 2 bill or more. It would cost thousands of dollars to PLEX the replacements for those ships, and that's just one battle in the war.
In the reality of the game, EVE's "winners" buy PLEX for ISK to save money, they don't buy PLEX for money to sell for ISK.
Thats not the issue here, The issue is: "Does plex provide mechanism to get an advantage."
I'll make this easy for you: the best advantage you can ever get from spending excess money into this game is using alts. ISK alone is not an advantage in eve as you're used to in other linear games. And that's why every experienced player would rather make an alt than spend plex on isk alone, and actually plex themselves instead of selling it for isk.
Just because there is technically an advantage, it does not make it very meaningful at all, or a replacement for actual game knowledge. You won't buy your way up in eve, that is for certain.
Originally posted by NitthSo what about that guy that has the skills and buys an endless supply of ships for his corp war?
You still only fly one at a time, so for a fight it doesn't give you an advantage. But the PLEX bought you time though, because you don't have to run missions or any other ingame activity to earn back isk if you lose the ship.
But looking at it by scale, Wars could be won when competitors have more ships for fodder.
Each of those Rokhs costs 300M ISK. Megas are about the same. Carriers are 2 bill or more. It would cost thousands of dollars to PLEX the replacements for those ships, and that's just one battle in the war.
In the reality of the game, EVE's "winners" buy PLEX for ISK to save money, they don't buy PLEX for money to sell for ISK.
Thats not the issue here, The issue is: "Does plex provide mechanism to get an advantage."
Does paying for a second account provide a mechanism to get an advantage?
Think about what happens with the PLEX transaction. The originating player buys a GTC from CCP or some other retailer and redeems it into 2 PLEX. At this point CCP count their product obligation as fulfilled; the player has receive what he has paid for, regardless of what happens to it in the future. So far, this is pretty much identical to any other MT: gief publisher monies = can haz in-game itemz. But what can you actually do with your PLEX?
Well first you can add it on to your own account, which enables you to play the game for another 30 days. Of course this isn't really a MT in any way that people care about, just a slightly roundabout way to pay a subscription, but I presume we can agree that this promotes gameplay, insofar as it means that the original purchaser will play EVE for +30 days.
Secondly, you can sell it to another player for ISK. This is where it gets interesting, and where it starts to look like RMT and so forth. The most important difference is that the ISK exchange is between two players, not between a player and CCP. This sounds too obvious and trivial to be worth mentioning, but so many people don't seem to understand how important this subtle difference is. Player A sells a PLEX to player B for 500M ISK. (In and of itself, this is a player interaction just like any other market trade, BTW) The amount of ISK ingame stays the same. The ISK that player A receives, he receives apparently without doing any work for it, but the important thing is that work was done for that ISK. So player B had to do missions, convert LP, play the Jita market, risk his ship ratting, run a research POS and sell BPCs or do whatever other activity he engaged in to raise that 500M ISK. If Player A wasn't lazy or time-restricted or whatever other reason he'd rather pay $17.50 than make 500M for himself, he might have done any or all of those activities. As it is, Player B did them on his behalf, but those activities still had to take place, with all the normal implications for wider interaction with the EVE economy and community. To the rest of EVE there is no functional difference between player A selling a PLEX to player B, and player A using his ISK making alt A2 to make 400M.
Additionally, the value received is determined directly by player supply and demand. The amount of ISK you can get for your $17.50 is always dynamically set to exactly what the EVE playerbase as a whole thinks it should be. If CCP sold ISK directly, they'd pick a value (and you can bet your ass it would be hilariously wrong) and stick to it .
Conversely, consider what would happen if Player A was simply able to buy ISK directly from CCP then all that activity would not take place. In addition, it is quite possible that Player B simply wouldn't be playing, as for many people, being able to play for free is all that keeps them subscribed. Even if they kept their mains going, the number of "ISK making alts" would plummet, as the Player B's partly have them to pay for PLEX. So Player C cant buy his faction ammo from B, sell his stuff at Jita to B, gank B's ratting Drake or do whatever other interaction might take place, or at least has less opportunity to do so. Player interaction is reduced, player population is reduced, gameplay is reduced.
Additionally, because the amount of ISK you can buy is limited by the amount of ISK that other players are willing to spend on PLEX, there's a hard cap on how much ISK you can buy this way. It's a pretty high cap, but it's there. If CCP sold ISK directly, they'd sell it at the rate which maximised the amount of money people give them, which obviously means that they'd have every incentive to sell it for ever cheaper prices, since they can spawn as much as they want for free. Hello galloping inflation!
So yes, PLEX allow people to "buy advantage". But it does it in a very very clever way, and it's an MT that actually supports and enhances the game rather than stealing gameplay to provide pure profit to CCP.
Please report your findings, we are all very interested to see if you won or not. P.S., if you intend of transporting the $2,500 in PLEX from one station to another, please let me know your character name, I would like to help you "win" :-p
Secondly, you can sell it to another player for ISK. This is where it gets interesting, and where it starts to look like RMT and so forth. The most important difference is that the ISK exchange is between two players, not between a player and CCP. This sounds too obvious and trivial to be worth mentioning, but so many people don't seem to understand how important this subtle difference is. Player A sells a PLEX to player B for 500M ISK. (In and of itself, this is a player interaction just like any other market trade, BTW) The amount of ISK ingame stays the same. The ISK that player A receives, he receives apparently without doing any work for it, but the important thing is that work was done for that ISK. So player B had to do missions, convert LP, play the Jita market, risk his ship ratting, run a research POS and sell BPCs or do whatever other activity he engaged in to raise that 500M ISK. If Player A wasn't lazy or time-restricted or whatever other reason he'd rather pay $17.50 than make 500M for himself, he might have done any or all of those activities. As it is, Player B did them on his behalf, but those activities still had to take place, with all the normal implications for wider interaction with the EVE economy and community. To the rest of EVE there is no functional difference between player A selling a PLEX to player B, and player A using his ISK making alt A2 to make 400M.
I like what you said, but its just a small comment - which for me slightly reinforces what your saying
But in fact the isk in game doesn't stay the same it actually goes down!. Your forgetting Taxes, might not be a lot, but even by CCP own admission market/contract taxes are the largest isk sink in game
This 'down' of isk can be anything from 1.5% > 3% depending on various skills, so a fair bit of isk thats all
I have nothing new to say here that hasn't been said, but i'll cast my vote with this message.
I could spend thousands of dollars buying my wife (who has never played EvE) a new character and a whole fleet of battleships.
I guarantee she would lose every ship and I can absolutely 100% verify beyond any doubt that the events following my expenditure would not be considered a win by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
Please report your findings, we are all very interested to see if you won or not. P.S., if you intend of transporting the $2,500 in PLEX from one station to another, please let me know your character name, I would like to help you "win" :-p
One of my most funny Eve moments was when about four of us in BC's ran into a dread in an asteroid belt in low sec. No joke, he was ratting, shooting at a frig size rat with a cap size weapon probably wondering why he was missing. The kill mail showed that he had only 1 gun fit and nothing else.
He later told us that he bought the character recently and had only been playing a few weeks.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Comments
If you pay2win EVE, you've already pay2lose
All you'll ended up doing is just giving free money to other, more veteran players
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
So what about that guy that has the skills and buys an endless supply of ships for his corp war?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
You still only fly one at a time, so for a fight it doesn't give you an advantage. But the PLEX bought you time though, because you don't have to run missions or any other ingame activity to earn back isk if you lose the ship.
You know why everyone justifies that eve is not pay-to-win?
Because everyone in the game wants you to sell PLEX for isk and buy a lot of stuff, also everyone in the game really want you to buy that character from the character bazar. Why because with all your 'I-win' items and 'I-win' character, you will suck badly, because 'I-win' items and 'I-win' characters don't give enough advantage in the game to overcome experience.
Everything in eve is about the person, not the character's he plays. You know what happens when a veteran player start training a fresh character with no skills and a small T1-fit frigate and asks to join a PvP ops with that character? He will be invited immediately because his experience is so important in the battle field that no one cares what he flies.
Did you know all ships in eve are balanced? A large ship against a small ship will end up in a stalemate; the big ship cannot hit the small ship, the small ship cannot do enough damage, however the small ship can stop the large ship from doing anything. Therefor in PvP all ships are important.
Yes it is pay to win... Because if you don't pay you can not play and thus not win... =P
Beyond that i do not think there is any game that rewards long time comitment as well as Eve. I'd say it is the exact opposite of the traditional P2W.
This have been a good conversation
But looking at it by scale, Wars could be won when competitors have more ships for fodder.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
That would get insanely expensive very quickly. Look at last night's battle between the CFC and the HBC: http://dog-net.org/brdoc/?brid=21564
Each of those Rokhs costs 300M ISK. Megas are about the same. Carriers are 2 bill or more. It would cost thousands of dollars to PLEX the replacements for those ships, and that's just one battle in the war.
In the reality of the game, EVE's "winners" buy PLEX for ISK to save money, they don't buy PLEX for money to sell for ISK.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I lol'ed
Mittens hardly ever plays the game! The only reason that he is famous is because of an incident that happens years ago in which he barely played a part in. I.e. the disbanding of BOB. Prior to that he was just a grunt that was high up on the the slippery ladder of goonfleet.
It's Plex to win!
Loose ships, buy more, loose ships, buy more, no isk, buy plex, loose ships, buy more... see any pattern?
The only thing stopping Eve being 100% P2W is the skills and the time it takes to learn them.
But as for making isk, you never need leave the station EVER again. (Which is probably why it's became as boring as hell for me!).
No trials. No tricks. No traps. No EU-RP server. NO THANKS!
...10% Benevolence, 90% Arrogance in my case!
And if you don't know how to "use" said character... if you don't know how to outfit a ship correctly... if you don't belong to a decent corp... that character isn't going to do you much good.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
a big expensive ship is usually known by the term 'primary target' because expensive ships do look a lot more interesting on killmails than some random guy in a rifter, but yeah, those who go into Eve thinking its Pay to Win usually end up as padding on someone elses killboard
But looking at it by scale, Wars could be won when competitors have more ships for fodder.
That would get insanely expensive very quickly. Look at last night's battle between the CFC and the HBC: http://dog-net.org/brdoc/?brid=21564
Each of those Rokhs costs 300M ISK. Megas are about the same. Carriers are 2 bill or more. It would cost thousands of dollars to PLEX the replacements for those ships, and that's just one battle in the war.
In the reality of the game, EVE's "winners" buy PLEX for ISK to save money, they don't buy PLEX for money to sell for ISK.
Thats not the issue here, The issue is: "Does plex provide mechanism to get an advantage."
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Nope, and anyone who'd have spent more than a month in the game would realize this. The time it takes to get those skills up to be good in those types of fights you'll have amassed more than enough ISK to replace those ships. Had you not, and were poorly skilled, then even those 100 ships you bought with ISK converted PLEX will only clutter the battlefield as they explode just like the first one.
The advantage would be to the salvagers afterwards.
I'll make this easy for you: the best advantage you can ever get from spending excess money into this game is using alts. ISK alone is not an advantage in eve as you're used to in other linear games. And that's why every experienced player would rather make an alt than spend plex on isk alone, and actually plex themselves instead of selling it for isk.
Just because there is technically an advantage, it does not make it very meaningful at all, or a replacement for actual game knowledge. You won't buy your way up in eve, that is for certain.
Does paying for a second account provide a mechanism to get an advantage?
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Think about what happens with the PLEX transaction. The originating player buys a GTC from CCP or some other retailer and redeems it into 2 PLEX. At this point CCP count their product obligation as fulfilled; the player has receive what he has paid for, regardless of what happens to it in the future. So far, this is pretty much identical to any other MT: gief publisher monies = can haz in-game itemz. But what can you actually do with your PLEX?
Well first you can add it on to your own account, which enables you to play the game for another 30 days. Of course this isn't really a MT in any way that people care about, just a slightly roundabout way to pay a subscription, but I presume we can agree that this promotes gameplay, insofar as it means that the original purchaser will play EVE for +30 days.
Secondly, you can sell it to another player for ISK. This is where it gets interesting, and where it starts to look like RMT and so forth. The most important difference is that the ISK exchange is between two players, not between a player and CCP. This sounds too obvious and trivial to be worth mentioning, but so many people don't seem to understand how important this subtle difference is. Player A sells a PLEX to player B for 500M ISK. (In and of itself, this is a player interaction just like any other market trade, BTW) The amount of ISK ingame stays the same. The ISK that player A receives, he receives apparently without doing any work for it, but the important thing is that work was done for that ISK. So player B had to do missions, convert LP, play the Jita market, risk his ship ratting, run a research POS and sell BPCs or do whatever other activity he engaged in to raise that 500M ISK. If Player A wasn't lazy or time-restricted or whatever other reason he'd rather pay $17.50 than make 500M for himself, he might have done any or all of those activities. As it is, Player B did them on his behalf, but those activities still had to take place, with all the normal implications for wider interaction with the EVE economy and community. To the rest of EVE there is no functional difference between player A selling a PLEX to player B, and player A using his ISK making alt A2 to make 400M.
Additionally, the value received is determined directly by player supply and demand. The amount of ISK you can get for your $17.50 is always dynamically set to exactly what the EVE playerbase as a whole thinks it should be. If CCP sold ISK directly, they'd pick a value (and you can bet your ass it would be hilariously wrong) and stick to it .
Conversely, consider what would happen if Player A was simply able to buy ISK directly from CCP then all that activity would not take place. In addition, it is quite possible that Player B simply wouldn't be playing, as for many people, being able to play for free is all that keeps them subscribed. Even if they kept their mains going, the number of "ISK making alts" would plummet, as the Player B's partly have them to pay for PLEX. So Player C cant buy his faction ammo from B, sell his stuff at Jita to B, gank B's ratting Drake or do whatever other interaction might take place, or at least has less opportunity to do so. Player interaction is reduced, player population is reduced, gameplay is reduced.
Additionally, because the amount of ISK you can buy is limited by the amount of ISK that other players are willing to spend on PLEX, there's a hard cap on how much ISK you can buy this way. It's a pretty high cap, but it's there. If CCP sold ISK directly, they'd sell it at the rate which maximised the amount of money people give them, which obviously means that they'd have every incentive to sell it for ever cheaper prices, since they can spawn as much as they want for free. Hello galloping inflation!
So yes, PLEX allow people to "buy advantage". But it does it in a very very clever way, and it's an MT that actually supports and enhances the game rather than stealing gameplay to provide pure profit to CCP.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Is EVE pay to win? Experiment!
1) Spend $2,500 cash on plex
2)Exchange plex for ISK
3) Buy high end character/ships
4)Fly out into Nullsec/lowsec
Please report your findings, we are all very interested to see if you won or not. P.S., if you intend of transporting the $2,500 in PLEX from one station to another, please let me know your character name, I would like to help you "win" :-p
I like what you said, but its just a small comment - which for me slightly reinforces what your saying
But in fact the isk in game doesn't stay the same it actually goes down!. Your forgetting Taxes, might not be a lot, but even by CCP own admission market/contract taxes are the largest isk sink in game
This 'down' of isk can be anything from 1.5% > 3% depending on various skills, so a fair bit of isk
thats all 
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy
Ahnog
Hokey religions are no replacement for a good blaster at your side.
I have nothing new to say here that hasn't been said, but i'll cast my vote with this message.
I could spend thousands of dollars buying my wife (who has never played EvE) a new character and a whole fleet of battleships.
I guarantee she would lose every ship and I can absolutely 100% verify beyond any doubt that the events following my expenditure would not be considered a win by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
One of my most funny Eve moments was when about four of us in BC's ran into a dread in an asteroid belt in low sec. No joke, he was ratting, shooting at a frig size rat with a cap size weapon probably wondering why he was missing. The kill mail showed that he had only 1 gun fit and nothing else.
He later told us that he bought the character recently and had only been playing a few weeks.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville