New Year's Eve PLEX

Some recent sales data I should have put in the last post showing not only is the price of PLEX still going down but PLEX can be bought for quite a bit less than Eve's modified market "history" would have us believe.

The subtle pun in the title was not intentional, it just happened.

And here are the rest of my PLEX transactions on the 29th as mentioned in comments below. None of these transactions are listed in the screenshot above, they are in addition to the ones in the first shot.

In case anyone is wondering why I referred to a comment below as a troll, this is why.

https://disqus.com/by/disqus_nmqcSixYqa/

And before he deletes that Disqus account, heres a screenshot of his comment history.

Exactly 2 comments, both very recent, both in reply to me, one here and one on another blog. How nice, my biggest, craziest fan is following me around to other blogs now.

Happy New Year!

T'was the day before New Years and PLEX prices were falling...

PLEX prices are still dropping with today's Jita prices at 787 million in sell orders and 777 million in buy orders. That's only a 10 million ISK spread, less than the minimum possible combined taxes + broker fees to buy and sell one PLEX at those prices, which is an indication of a market still trending downwards.

Some others insist it's just a temporary effect caused by a bursting bubble, Christsmas PLEX sales or the recent influx of new players on trail accounts and prices will soon go back up again.

I disagree, I fully expect the downward to trend to continue. If the existing trend continues at the same rate PLEX will be selling for around 650 million each in another month.

But nobody knows for sure what's going to happen next, we're all just going to have to wait and see.

Starting tomorrow (Jan 1st, New Year's Day) the new multi-boxing input policy goes into effect and that's the main factor behind the drop in PLEX prices since around Nov 24.

Depending on how various holders of PLEX stockpiles react, the price might just continue going down slowly until it eventually stabilizes at a new lower level or it could crash hard.

If CCP isn't very strict about enforcing the new policy  prices will start going back up again before long. The multi-boxers certainly will test how effective CCP is in enforcing it.

Have a Happy New Year!

Immortal Bot

The Malma bot is still there, undercutting within seconds or minutes like always. Today I logged in and immediately updated a buy order for PLEX. 30 seconds later the bot had cut my order again.

Yeah, yeah I know, his defenders are going to swear it's just a coincidence. He just happened to be online updating orders when I logged in. For the umpteenth consecutive time over the last several months since I've been watching him more closely and much longer than that before I started paying closer attention to market bot activity in Genesis.

Reporting him for botting once didn't do anything so I started reporting him about once a week for a while.

That didn't work either, CCP remained blissfully oblivious to the most blatantly obvious bot I've ever run across in Eve. So I started reporting him once per day when possible and of course always waiting for him to cut me first (usually within 1-2 minutes).

That didn't do anything either (what does it take for CCP to wake up and ban a bot?), so the last few days I've just been reporting him every time he cuts even if it means multiple reports just 5 minutes apart on the same day.

That probably won't help either, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if it gets *ME a warning. But WTH, maybe eventually someone at CCP who actually gives a damn about stopping even just the most blatantly obvious cheaters will finally notice and do something about it.

I also noticed something in buy orders today. Notice the name below?

It's not the bot character, nor is it in the same corps as the bot but the first name is the same as a blog troll who repeatedly spammed aggressive, argumentative, abusive and overly defensive comments here insisting ad nauseam the bot is not a bot.

It seems likely Belgarion the troll is Belgarion the Genesis resident. I have to wonder whether or not he's connected to the bot in any way. Is he an alt, friend, family, business partner or w/e or is he just some random player who reads my blog and for some reason thought I was talking about him?

Addendum: So the next day I log in and to my amazement the bot is not online. But not for long, within 3 minute he's online and already starting to cut the orders I've updated. In my WoW days when a bot started doing that it usually meant he was starting to feel pressure and beginning to worry about getting caught so he started logging off whenever his competitors weren't online to make it seem like he isn't botting. Monitor the market from another character with known competitors watchlisted, if a watchlist competitor logins it either automatically logs the bot in to start cutting or sets off an audible alarm alerting the botter to login manually.

The most obsessive botters are often no-lifers making a fulltime job of botting. They run literal armies of bots on dozens or even hundreds of accounts. Those guys are usually nearby monitoring the bots and ready to respond to alarms within a few minutes 16+ hours a day. Log the correct character in, turn on the bot and walk away laughing about how "smart" they are.

A bit later (more than 5 minutes) I cut again. It only took him 16 seconds to cut me again.

Ten minutes after that it only took him 10 seconds to respond. He'll keep that up all day long until I log off. Even if I go afk for hours without logging out, he'll be there waiting with machine like patience to immediately respond whenever I modify an order.

Anyone who thinks that isn't a bot is dreaming... Or bots themselves.

It doesn't matter what time of the day, night, week, month or year it is. No matter when it is or how long it's been since the last time he'll cut within a few minutes at the most.

Christmas PLEX - part II

Just a little addition to what's happening in the PLEX market over the holidays. It's not quite Christmas yet, but here's a screenshot of prices in Dodixie as of right now.

Dodixie is one of the major hubs, the 3rd largest in fact. PLEX there right now are about 810 million each in sell orders and only 771 million each in buy orders. Prices are down around the same levels in many other regions too.

And here's a screenshot of the PLEX I've bought over just the last few days.

That's 41 more PLEX, nearly doubling my existing stock. If prices continue falling, I'll burn 100+ on subscriptions and wind up with all 12 of my accounts subbed for at least a full year.

Note those purchases were all guard orders priced well under the then going price of 1-3 weeks ago and for the most part just left to sit without modification until they got filled. The orders were in many different regions, most of them were for either 2 or 5 and have been completely filled.

Of course the real market rush is going to start on Christmas Day and probably last for 2-3 days. Then on Jan 1 we'll start seeing the effects of the new multi-boxing policy.

Things are about to get very interesting.

Christmas PLEX

Christmas is nearly upon us. The holidays always have an effect on gaming, I'm going to make a few simple predictions on what's going to happen in Eve Online over the holiday season and on into the new year.

First as we all know (or should know by now) a new policy is coming into effect on Jan 1st regarding input multiplication, duplication, broadcasting or w/e you want to call it. What it boils down to is most of what multiboxers do now will become a bannable offence on Jan 1.

We've already seen shifts in markets due to speculation on what's going to happen when the new policy goes into effect. The easiest place to see this is in the PLEX market where prices have been trending downward ever since the policy change was announced (even slightly before).

As can easily be seen in the graph above, PLEX prices spiked sharply down immediately after the announcement (in fact it actually started a day or so prior to the announcement). The price then recovered somewhat before again trending down at a lower rate. That trend is still continuing today.

However it's all speculative at this point, we won't know for sure what the real and lasting effects of the policy change will be until after it comes into effect on Jan 1. Even then it'll probably be at least a month or two until things start settling down and we can predict what will happen in the PLEX market over the long term with much confidence.

Those who predict (or guess) right early and back it up with their wallets could easily make a fortune. Then again those who guess wrong could easily lose a fortune.

But I'm not making long term predictions here, other than that there will market chaos on Jan 1. I'm just going to predict the following.

1. There will be increased demand for PLEX over the Christmas Holidays. Expect to see a moderate rise in price. I'm sitting on 40 or 50 PLEX in anticipation of that, expecting to sell them for enough more in a few days to make it worth holding on to them for now.

2. That will be followed by a continuation of the existing downward trend in PLEX prices.

3. On or shortly after Jan 1 there will be chaos in the markets. Massive chaos. The PLEX and ore/minerals markets will be affected first. Most other markets will follow ore and minerals.

I'm expecting ore and mineral prices to go up while PLEX prices continue going down. Depending on exactly how things work out (in particular how strict CCP is about enforcing the new policy) we could be in for a big crash in the PLEX market.

Then again if CCP isn't very strict or is ineffectual about enforcing the new policy things will soon be back to business as usual for multiboxers and market manipulators. PLEX prices will start going up again and ore/mineral prices will come down.

So make your predictions, open your wallets and take your chances, there are fortunes to be made and lost during chaotic times like this. Or you can just play it safe, stand pat and wait to see what happens before acting. The choice is your's.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Gifts!

Eve Hermit reported it first but this is worth repeating. The 2014 Christmas Gifts are here!

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/happy-holidays-from-ccp-1/

Time to login to all your accounts and check the Redeeming systems, there are a pile of gifts there.

Even more importantly log into each account on CCP's account management site and use this link to claim 20 days free multiple training.

Nice! 20 days multi training is a very useful gift! Especially if you have a lot of accounts.

These gifts expire on Jan 11 so make sure you claim them before then!

Malma Bot - Part III

Just a quick update regarding the behavior of the bot operating out of Malma in Genesis. This is speculation on my part but it looks to me like Rhea may have broken his bot.

Though he's still online virtually all the time, he's not updating with his usual metronome like precision anymore. Now it often takes him an hour or more to respond which is more in line with a no-lifer doing it manually than a bot.

To me this implies one of 2 things.

1. CCP has communicated with him, worrying him he's being investigated for botting so he's being more careful and putting on his best "But I'm just a regular player who leaves his character logged in 23.5/7. Really!" act.

2. Rhea UI changes to transparency settings, blink notifications and so on have confused and broken his bot. Or maybe the cache format changed too, that'd break a lot of bots. Whatever, something changed and broke the bot.

Considering the behavioral change started with Rhea's release, I don't think that's just a coincidence. I'm inclined to believe it's a sign Rhea broke his bot rather than an indication he's worried about getting caught.

It's very likely he runs many more bots in multiple other regions at the same time. When a patch changes something that breaks the bot he has to do everything manually until the bot gets fixed. Genesis isn't exactly the busiest region around, it's probably low on his priority list so he doesn't spend much time updating orders there.

CCP should do that on purpose from time to time. It'd be a great tool to help catch bots. Change something that breaks the bots but isn't a problem for honest players doing it manually and see which suspicious players suddenly can't do the same things with the same precision and uninterrupted frequency they've somehow manged to keep up for months or even years on end.

Edit: I'm not crazy, Nosygamer has since posted proof (in the form of the botter's own comments and complaints) many bots were broken by Rhea CCP's War On Bots: Rhea Breaks Bots

High Sec Militia

I ran across an interesting site today while checking Referring URLS in Blogger traffic sources.

High Sec Militia and How the Grinch Stole Gankmas

I don't know much about them yet but the project caught my interest. It looks like it might be a worthy project so I figured I'd give it a plug here.

Now they just need to provide some statistical data showing how well the project is working. Then add goons to the target list, put up a donation board and they might be onto something big.

And no, I'm not one of the mysterious "sponsors" mentioned on their site, though I have a hunch a certain other space-rich blogger might be. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out to be one of his projects and he's the primary source of funds.

PLEX Report 12-12-2014

As regular readers here must know by now, I've been monitoring and dabbling in the PLEX market for a long time. The last few months and especially since the announcement of the forthcoming multiboxing policy changes coming on 01 Jan 2015 I've been watching it a bit closer than usual.

IMO everything we've seen so far since that announcement is entirely based on speculation, the real and lasting effects of the policy changes won't be seen until after Jan 1st when the new policy actually goes into effect. Then there will be chaos in the markets (not just PLEX) and it'll probably take at least a month or two before things settle down enough that we can predict future PLEX demand and pricing with much confidence.

When news of the forthcoming changes first went public (or even slightly before) there was a sudden sharp drop in the price of PLEX. Some panicked and dumped PLEX, others tried to buy it all up while the price was down. Since then the price recovered somewhat and seemed to be slowly rising up again. Margins tightened up, there wasn't much profit in buying and reselling PLEX.

Figuring that was just the start with plenty of action left in the PLEX market before this is done yet, I put up guard orders on PLEX in 21 regions, sat back and waited to see what would happen next. Then today several guard orders in the high 700 mil to low 800 mil range got filled.

For example on Jita...

I did some checking on EveMarketData and found the buy price had dropped back into the low 800s just about everywhere, even lower in some places.

Here's a graph of PLEX prices on Jita over the last 3 months. You can see the big drop after the announcement of the policy change, a small recovery after that, followed by the start of another drop.

I still say we're due for a lot more chaos in the markets before this all done. In the end this is going to affect everything from PLEX, to mining and minerals, industry and trade. Nobody knows for sure exactly what's going to happen. We'll have to wait for Jan 1st to see what happens and even longer to know how it's all going to shake out in the end.

This is not bad news for traders, quite the opposite in fact, it's great news! Times of change are when ISK making opportunities abound and the more chaos there is the greater the opportunities are. Those who expect and anticipate chaos, are ready and willing to take action when it happens, stand to make fortunes.

Skill Queue Changes Affect on Hours Playing Eve

The 24 hour limit on the skill queue was removed recently, allowing us to set up much longer skill queues and ending the game of "skill queue online". We can now set up queues containing many short skills that take months to train them all and no longer have to log in every day or every few days to add another skill to the queue.

Once the queue is set up on a particular character you can forget about it and not log that character in at all until the training is all completed.

The question is has this training queue change affected the amount of time you spend playing Eve?

IOW, are you logging in less often and/or spending less time playing Eve after the change than before?

If not, is it about the same as before or are you spending *more time now?

Myself, I find I'm spending significantly less time playing Eve now than before. Before I'd check daily to make sure I didn't lose any training time. Most days there were several characters that needed their queues updated. That'd get me logging in and once I was logged in I'd usually decide to do some other things too and wind up spending an hour or two playing Eve.

Now, I don't worry much about skill queues, I check every few days and rarely need to do anything. Not only do I spend far less time playing "skill queue online" but I log in far less often and spend far less time playing the rest of the game too.

How about you? What's your story?

Sugar for Chairman

The politics for CSM X have begun. Sugar Kyle, who's done a truly excellent job during her first term on CSM 9, has announced her intention to run again for CSM X.

Last year I almost posted a prediction that she as a brand new, relatively unknown first time CSM candidate would finish in 3rd place on the ballots and might even take 2nd. I actually wrote an article predicting that but never posted it.

This time I'll go out on a limb with a bold prediction and make it early. I predict Sugar upsets the well oiled, previously unbeatable goon election machine and takes the number 1 spot away from them.

Now don't make me look silly, make sure you all turn out for the vote and put her in the number 1 slot on all of your ballots!

Good luck Sugar!

Octagon

A few screenshots of what I've been working on lately.