I am hardly a rich man in Eve. I make enough to replace ships I lose and put a little away for big buys down the road, but I ain't making billions in wspace. We don't live here for the ISK, we just live here because the environment is what we feel Eve should be everywhere. I am kind of a jack of all trades, but master of none. I can trade, but don't have the patience or acuity to have a big operation. I do PI, but only for the good of the corp. I can mine, but that's not exactly a jackpot. So I am always looking at doing something better or finding something new to bring in some extra ISK. If I could PLEX my account every month somehow, I'd be happy as a lark.
So I've been playing with an idea lately, but I'm unsure about it. That idea is character selling. Basically, you train a character for a little while for a specific purpose, whether it's an orca alt or a marauder or something else, and then sell it on the Eve O forums. I have corpmates that do this on a regular basis and it is quite interesting. I've looked around and found the Resource and Rules thread for character sales, as well as a FAQ and a post for tips on what to do before selling a character.
It can be quite lucrative, netting anywhere from a couple hundred million ISK to billions, depending on the character. But how do you price a character to sell? There's always a thousand and one opinions on any subject, so my answer may not be the same. Prices fluctuate as well so what's true one time may not be the next. If you don't want to worry about it and let someone else do the thinking, there are those who will. To my understanding at this time, though, the price is something like 200 million ISK per 1 million skillpoints, but the price can go up for dedicated purposes like the Orca or marauder pilots. The good way to find out is to simply look at what others are doing, compare and contrast what they offer with what you have and ballpark a figure. The best way? Simply try it out and see what works for you and what doesn't. I heard a rumor that you may not want to train a general alt too far or a purposed one beyond that single purpose, because then the price starts to lower. I guess there's a rule of diminishing returns in there somewhere.
Do you have an alt just sitting around doing nothing? Think you could make a fair bit of money? Go for it, try this different market out. And if you want, let me know how it goes because I'd love to hear it. [
-Mem
2 comments:
I never sell my "real" alts in any game. Call it sentimental attachment or fear of the possibility of needing one of them for something after I sell them.
There was a point a year or so ago that I had debated grinding out some barebones hulk pilots (like 50 days with some basic learning skills), but decided against it. I was already plexing my accounts so spending the time / money to gain 500-750 mil isk didn't seem worth it. Had I not been plexing though I would have started doing it right away.
Just don't forget about the $20 transfer fee + the monthly fee while you wait for the character to skill up. If the only goal is the eliminate your monthly payment it might not be worth it.
Also, this might interest you. Haven't really looked at it since it was in "beta" but it was interesting at the time. Character Appraiser: gemblog.nl/skill.
Aye, I definitely know what you mean. That's why when I played WoW, I couldn't understand how people leveled up and then just deleted characters. When I put time and effort into a character, I do get kinda attached. It's the main reason I haven't done this myself.
The transfer fee is the one that's the deal breaker for me. It seems too much hassle and RL money to just make a few bil. I'm trying other ways to be able to PLEX my account, just thought I'd put a post up for those that don't know too much about it. Thanks for the link too :D
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