Un-mothballed my account just to post this: Slashdot has been an integral part of internet's late 90s and early 00s for me and for most of the geek world. Thanks for all your hard work.

You can buy 'everything' with legit RL money already using the PLEX mechanism.

The problem is that CCP, EVE's creators, are unwilling to specify the length they want to go with microtransactions. A year ago their stance was "no gameplay changing MTs!" - now they reneged on that.

At the moment, even the "your target has paid 10$ to regenerate his shields; do you want to pay 20$ for a special gun effect to remove his shields?" stupidities are not off the table.