Darryl Woodford

The PLEX, or Pilot License EXtension is the only form of RMT that is permitted with Eve Online. In essence, you can buy an item for $15 which grants you 30 days of game time. Alternatively, you can sell this PLEX to another player via the in-game economy, the current market rate for such being around 300 million ISK. Officially, there is no way to go the other way (i.e. you can’t turn in-game currency into real money), though you can ‘gift’ PLEX to others.

Traditionally PLEX have been a special case in Eve, you couldn’t travel around with them, instead using a redeem/reverse-redeem system and remote activation to take advantage of them wherever you may be in New Eden. Now though, things are changing. Selected quotes from the Dev Blog follow, along with some quick thoughts from me:

Now what?

[...] Therefore we’ll be removing all the special casing surrounding the PLEX items and have them function and behave as any other regular item. At the same time we’re changing the behaviour of the Redeeming system a bit so that items can be redeemed in any station (you could only redeem items in NPC stations before).

What does that mean specifically

• We will remove the restriction on undocking from a station with a PLEX in your cargo hold

• We will remove the restriction that PLEX cannot be put into courier contracts

• We will remove the restriction that items (including PLEX) can only be redeemed into NPC stations

• We will remove the restriction that items (including PLEX) can only be reverse-redeemed from NPC stations

• We will remove the restriction that ETC can only be converted into PLEX while inside an NPC station

If you blow up a ship that happens to be carrying PLEX, it may drop the PLEX as loot or it may be destroyed in the conflagration (much like any other item in a ship’s cargo hold). The refund policies for PLEX will not be any different from any other item..

Are you crazy? Do you know how many people will emoragequit when they’re ganked with PLEX in their cargo?

Maybe we’re a little crazy, yes, but we truly think the benefits outweigh the risks here. One of them is to combat the perception that PLEX is a more valuable item than others in the game which, of course, it isn’t (anyone who has lost a titan/carrier/T2 BS/etc knows this full well). Among the risks of course is that people will start losing PLEXs’ en masse and cancel their subscriptions. We will be monitoring that extremely closely as well as all other aspects of PLEX trade/usage patterns. Remember, we’re not forcing anyone to undock with PLEX, in fact we’re making things a little bit safer (if people choose to use the option) by allowing redeeming of PLEX to all stations instead of just NPC stations. The choice and risk is always at the discretion of the player, just like it should be.

via EVE Online | EVE Insider | Dev Blog.

Reaction amongst the Eve community seems mixed, with both sides being presented on their discussion forum. It seems to me that whilst this may anger a few new players who are unaware of the implications of travelling with PLEX and thus lose game-time, the overall change is logical. The PLEX is effectively just an item worth 300 million ISK (which we can equate to US$15), and there are a number of in-game items worth significantly more that it is possible to lose. However, not everyone agrees as this blog post indicates:

Oh, I’ve been waiting for this one.  This has drama, rage quit, and QQ written all over it.

[…]

PLEX will be set free.  You can carry it around.  You can sell people contracts to carry it for you.

And, of course, people can take it away from you.

And that is where the fun begins.  Somebody scans your cargo, sees you’re carrying game time, and you are suddenly a high priority target.

This goes live Tuesday, July 13, 2010.

I cannot wait to see how this unfolds.  I want to read tales of PLEX piracy.

This is soooo EVE Online.

via PLEX! PLEX for Piracy! « The Ancient Gaming Noob

Will be interesting to see how this one evolves…

I have a couple of more personal entries, plus some thoughts on the Eve PLEX changes to come, but for now some quick items that I added to my ‘To Blog’ list, but never actually got around to:

From CNN, ‘Want to sound like a world cup expert?’, confirming everything we ever thought about Americans This article included such gems as:

Phrases to impress your boss

“The referee’s blind!”
An excellent phrase to insert when those around you lament a goal that “never was,” a clear handball or a murderous foul not spotted by the official.

“There’s a case for video technology”
Following your previous observation about the referee’s eyesight, join the calls for video replays to help him make the right decision.

“He’s got two left feet”
As frustration grows with one hapless player in particular, make sure you aren’t left out.

via CNN

Fangraphs, which is one of a growing number of sabermetric (mathematical/statistical study of baseball) sites around the web, picked up on a MLB plan to sell what amount to Playoff Ticket Futures — you pay a fee now to have the right to buy a ticket to playoff games down the road. The Math looks a little like this:

Ok, so should you take part in this program? First, answer these questions: would you like to see a playoff game? Is it worth it to pay above the face value of the ticket to ensure you can go? If so, by how much? That is how much more than face value would you be willing to pay for a given game, assuming that game were to take place. Let’s call that amount, x. Now assuming the probability of the game taking place is p, the the value of the option is:

Value = (1-p)*0 + p*x

Say you are thinking of buying the option to see Game One of the Rangers’ potential ALDS. If they make the playoffs at all this game will happen, and using BPro’s playoff odds they are 82.9% to make the playoffs. So you should buy the option if:

0.829x > 10

x > $12.06

Would you pay the face value of the ticket plus $12.06 to see the Rangers play Games One or Three in Arlington of a ALDS? If so, and you have faith in BPro’s playoff odds, you should buy this $10 option now. Seventeen percent of the time it will be worthless, but 83% of the time you will have something you value at over $12.06.

via Fangraphs.com

The highlight is that the break-even price to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series is somewhere in the region of $400 million, yet you can be sure somebody will buy that option. For the Angels it’s about $400, which is probably only indicative of the fact we are struggling with an outside shot this year.

And a couple of randoms from Richard Bartle’s blog, who seems to have fallen for the same airline fail as was inflicted upon me on my journey from London to Singapore earlier this year, getting this as a seat:

via QBlog

Also worth visiting is his photo gallery from Leipzig, where he was speaking at Games Convention Online (where I was speaking this time last year), some good memories there, but what sparked my memory was this one of the station (where I caught trains to/from Berlin):

via QBlog

There’s a really awesome sausage shop below that station, where I stocked up on a ton of Saucisson and Black Pudding to take back to Denmark, where the only thing that resembled a sausage was bright red and revolting.

Blizzard have reconsidered, unsurprisingly. Though they are still sticking with, and don’t address, the in-game concerns discussed here previously.

I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

via World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> Open Letter: Real Names on Blizzard Forums

Oh, and the Cleveland Cavs owner committed one other faux pas I didn’t pick up on last night; via CNN:

Dear computer users: If you’re ever going to write a fuming letter, think twice before setting the font to the oh-so-mockable Comic Sans.

Take it from Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the NBA team that lost its star basketball player, LeBron James, on Thursday night.

After Gilbert posted a rant — in the cutesy Comic Sans typeface — about James’ departure on NBA.com, bloggers, newspaper writers and Twitter pundits lashed back with a collective message that essentially said this:

Unless you’re a fourth-grader, or being ironic, or the author of a comic book, or on vacation from the 1990s, never use that typeface.

via Cavs owner’s letter mocked for Comic Sans font – CNN.com.

Sorry, but this is simply unprofessional, and my guarantee is it will come back to haunt him…

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.

[...]

You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.

You have given so much and deserve so much more.

In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:

“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”

via Cavaliers: Open Letter to Fans from Cavaliers Majority Owner Dan Gilbert.