53 Weeks of World War Bee

We’re now past the one year mark and nothing special happened to magically end the war.  I guess we’ll just have to carry one.

Which didn’t mean there wasn’t some drama.  This past week saw two corporations in NCDot, Criterion and Original Sinners, discovered in their plans to jump ship and join NullSechnaya Sholupen (NSH) due to boredom with the war.  NSH, part of PAPI, has grabbed a corner of Fountain in which they have set up shop and spend most of their time battling in low sec.  The two corps, which have some key FCs on their rosters, want in on those fights.

The discovery of this plan initially drew a sharp rebuke from Vince Draken, leader of NCDot, that proscribed the two corps and hinted that they might even go to war with NSH over the whole thing, but so far nothing has changed, so that might have just been an opening bid.

As I wrote last week, the war effort breaking down would run against the current interests of PandaFam and possibly lead to the ruination of TEST and Legacy, so both groups are motivated to hold the PAPI null sec blue donut together.  It has been suggested that once one major party walks away from the war, the rush to the exits will follow, so anybody trying to leave the front lines should expect an array of threats and promises from their current allies.

One Year Ago

CCP cancelled all live events for the remainder of 2020.  That was hardly unexpected.  In fact, they seemed a bit late in calling it.  They also started straight up selling skill points for cash in the web store, something hardly unexpected in hindsight either I suppose.

Here I was looking into the different theaters of operation in which the PAPI invasion might take place.  It was also time for entosis warfare again.  TEST managed to take an ihub in Period Basis, which seemed like a strong start, but the Imperium wasn’t going to let that stand.

And then I summed up the first week of the war.

Delve Front

Once more, this image pretty much sums up the situation in Delve.

O-EIMK Constellation – July 11, 2021

Hot drops and skirmishes were the tale once again.  The Delve Campaign report for the week shows that the total ships destroyed was down by about 1,500 hulls.  Unfortunately, there is some glitch in the report and GSF losses don’t show.

Delve Campaign – Week 53

Adding up the losses by ship type it looks like the losses totaled up to about 270 billion ISK total and GSF losses, by subtracting everybody else, look to be about 100 billion of it.

Other Theaters

In Feythabolis Red Alliance continues to hold out in the corner of the region they captured.  They lost an ihub over the course of the week, but took another back, so they remain with the same number as before.

Feythabolis – July 11, 2021

Word is that The Initiative, back from a break, as setup to start harassing Legion of xXDEATHXx (X.I.X), which is invested in taking a big chunk of the region right now.

Over in Catch, the PAPI efforts to get back into the one-time Legacy region have stalled as Dracarys pushed back on Siege Green, retaking one of their ihubs.

Catch – July 11, 2021

The push into Catch seemed more an effort to push Imperium systems away from Querious to keep them from dropping on Legacy ratters and miners.

My Participation

I got in on an op early int the week when a there was a call for bombers to log in and join a Welp Squad operation in a wormhole.  They had found a Lazerhawks crabbing op in progress and we managed to kill a Minokawa, a Golem, and a pack of Lokis, along with some expensive pods.

Minokawa under attack

There is also a John Hartley video of the fight.

That wasn’t just the high point of my week in New Eden, but just about all of it. Otherwise I managed to miss any further skirmishes in Delve, so my losses for the war remain as:

• Ares interceptor – 18
• Malediction interceptor – 7
• Drake battle cruiser – 7
• Atron entosis frigate – 6
• Cormorant destroyer – 5
• Purifier stealth bomber – 5
• Crusader interceptor – 5
• Rokh battleship – 5
• Scimitar T2 logi – 5
• Ferox battle cruiser – 4
• Jackdaw destroyer – 4
• Guardian T2 logi – 2
• Scalpel T2 logi frigate – 2
• Scythe T1 logi – 1
• Raven battleship – 1
• Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
• Gnosis battlecruiser – 1
• Bifrost command destroyer – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
• Sigil entosis industrial – 1
• Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1

Other Items

CCP invited new players to “Seek your Destiny” in another attempt to make the game less opaque.

CCP also launched Minmatar Liberation Day which include login rewards, in-game events, and the usual sales in the store.

Have a Brutor Libre, the official drink of Minmatar Liberation Day!

And then there is the state of the player base.

The “summer of rage 2.0” meme keeps coming up related to the game.  Kotaku had an article last week exploring the whole lead up to where we are today.  But “rage” seems like an overreach.  Sure, some people are angry at CCP, but some people have been angry at CCP literally every single day since the game launched back in 2003.  And compared to the Incarna crisis, the rage feel pretty muted.  But, as I pointed out in the previous weekly update, it is more than monetization that is suppressing the PCU.

CCP’s response in the article seemed quite unconcerned about… everything.  They say their internal numbers are fine and this will all pass… no need to speak to the players, they’ll get on board, a sentiment that does feel remarkably reminiscent of CCP’s response to Incarna.  But CCP has a history of being dismissive of their player base.

As for the PCU this past week, we saw another of seven day run of not cracking the 25K mark, though the top number on Sunday was up a bit from the previous total.  We could blame it on US Independence Day the week before and an EU soccer match yesterday.  What will next week bring?

• Day 1 – 38,838
• Week 1 – 37,034
• Week 2 – 34,799
• Week 3 – 34,692
• Week 4 – 35,583
• Week 5 – 35,479
• Week 6 – 34,974
• Week 7 – 38,299
• Week 8 – 35,650
• Week 9 – 35,075
• Week 10 – 35,812
• Week 11 – 35,165
• Week 12 – 36,671
• Week 13 – 35,618
• Week 14 – 39,681
• Week 15 – 40,359
• Week 16 – 36,642
• Week 17 – 37,695
• Week 18 – 36,632
• Week 19 – 35,816 (Saturday)
• Week 20 – 37,628 (Saturday)
• Week 21 – 34,888
• Week 22 – 33,264
• Week 23 – 33,149
• Week 24 – 32,807 (Saturday)
• Week 25 – 31,611
• Week 26 – 39,667 (Saturday)
• Week 27 – 34,989 (Saturday)
• Week 28 – 34,713
• Week 29 – 35,996
• Week 30 – 38,323
• Week 31 – 38,167
• Week 32 – 37,259
• Week 33 – 35,886 (Saturday)
• Week 34 – 35,626
• Week 35 – 35,379
• Week 36 – 35,085
• Week 37 – 34,394
• Week 38 – 36,319
• Week 39 – 35,597 (Saturday)
• Week 40 – 35,384 (Saturday)
• Week 41 – 33,708
• Week 42 – 33,521
• Week 43 – 33,731
• Week 44 – 33,742 (Saturday)
• Week 45 – 33,758
• Week 46 – 31,768
• Week 47 – 29,898
• Week 48 – 31,462 (Monday)
• Week 49 – 27,914
• Week 50 – 26,045
• Week 51 – 25,661
• Week 52 – 24,262
• Week 53 – 24,290

Related

• INN – World War Bee: Week 53  (pending)
• INN – A Retrospective on M2-XFE
• Kotaku – EVE Online Facing Second “Summer of Rage”
• Reddit – Ongoing activity metrics for WWB #12
• Reddit – Killmails vs Online Players Comparison