So, after all this time, CCP has decided that PLEX should be treated as any other item…you will soon be able to transport them between stations, have them couriered, and so forth. This has resulted in a veritable firestorm on the forums; some people are in favor of it (and think CCP should be encouraging more of it), while others are against it.
Chief among the objections is that, if a ship gets ganked while carrying PLEX, the PLEX may be destroyed or dropped as loot. The concern is that, since PLEX represent “real money” and “real game time,” this is somehow a bad thing. But let’s look at this objectively. A PLEX can presently be acquired for somewhere on the close order of 300M ISK. While this isn’t “chump change” by any means, neither is it the most valuable thing you can have (and potentially lose) in EVE, not by a long shot. An Orca presently goes for just over that, and an Obelisk freighter goes for something on the close order of 700M ISK. Or, if you want something about the same size as a PLEX (0.01 m3) to compare to, a blueprint for that selfsame Obelisk goes for right around 1.7 billion ISK, or the equivalent of roughly half a dozen PLEX. Yet people haul blueprints around all the time, and even lose them when they get ganked, and no one seems to have a problem with that. (And the ones that do, quite frankly, need to HTFU.)
For those of you who don’t like the idea of PLEXs getting ganked out from under you, I say, don’t move ’em. Just deal in them the way you always have; that will still work just fine. Fly out to Jita (or Amarr, or Rens, or Hek, or your favorite trade hub), redeem your GTC to PLEXs there, and sell ’em off there. Or buy your PLEX at one of the trade hubs, and immediately redeem it for game time, which you can do from your Assets window from anywhere in the galaxy. If you do want to move PLEXs, take the same care as you would moving any other small but valuable item. (In small quantities, I’d recommend a Covert Ops frigate with a cloak, speed mods, and as good a tank as you can put on it. You can also put ’em into small, password-protected secure containers, and load those aboard a similarly-fit Blockade Runner.) This is not rocket science here. (Well, maybe it is, but you get the point.)
CCP’s avowed motivation in doing this is to keep PLEXs from being treated “differently” from any other item. Of course, they will still be “different,” in that (a) you can “buy” them with GTCs, ultimately “real money,” and (b) you can trade them in for game time. But consider this: Does this not open the door for CCP to introduce other items, perhaps, that have the (a) or (b) natures? What if, say, there were a Live Event, in which a powerful NPC ship were to drop as loot some special items that could be redeemed for 5-10 days game time? The mind boggles.
TL;DR of the above: This change was long overdue, and gives players more options. And isn’t that what we like?
The Ralpha Dogs 