Halloween Comes to EVE Online with Login Rewards and PvP Changes

I’m back from EVE Vegas and am still digesting some of what I heard, but just as I was leaving they were starting to announce some of their Halloween plans, which includes another round of login rewards.

Daily horrors indeed

The good news is that this time around it isn’t ALL just skill points, though there are still some skill points if that is your thing.

The reward matrix

There are even SKINs, though some of them look to be the same SKINs from last year, so I have them already.

The login rewards are claimable from downtime on the 28th… today… through until downtime on November 3rd, so log in to claim now.

In addition, there is a bit of a spicy PvP incentive from the newly formed Team Talos.

Be the house with the full size modules

The details for this only came out at EVE Vegas, but from downtime on the 29th through to downtime on November 5th ALL PVP kills will drop 100% of the modules and and cargo contents.  The loot fairy will say YES the whole time.  I expect a spike in suicide ganking if nothing else.

Also coming is the Howling Interceptors update.

Combat Interceptors Arise

This was also something where the details only came out on Saturday as part of the Team Talos changed.  Combat interceptors are getting a boost to make them more viable when compared to assault frigates.

Combat Frigate Buffs

These updates are not an event but a permanent change… or at least as permanent as anything is in New Eden.

And that is what we are getting for Halloween.  Unfortunately we don’t seem to be in line to get another event like the Crimson Harvest from last year.

The Crimson Gauntlet banana

No banana of death this time around.

WoW Classic with The Creators and some Lore

Blizzard, in the warm up to WoW Classic… which is launching tomorrow afternoon… put together a of video featuring some of the original WoW team talking about their experiences in creating WoW and what they worked on.  Then they bring them all into a room to start playing WoW Classic together to get their reactions, which gets some moving responses from the them.

That is a fun and encouraging watch.

Blizzard followed this up with a second episode focusing on one of the team, Aaron Keller, one of the original 3D artists, and what he worked on during early development.

That there was an episode 2 implies that there might be more coming.  We shall see.

Meanwhile, Fandom Entertainment, the group that does Honest Game Trailers, did a video to summarize the lore on which the original World of Warcraft was built.

That always gets a little… or more than a little… mixed up in my head.  And all the more so since the lore has moved on and there has been time travel and all of that.

Anyway, that is something to watch while we wait for Monday afternoon to finally arrive.

CCP Clarifies the Skill Point Killing Spree Event

Last week, when CCP announced the Season of Skills event, I lifted their copy directly and trimmed it some for brevity and clarity, which are often the same thing.  I also changed “skill points” from being capitalized, because the world doesn’t need that.  But what they said at the time about phase two of the event, the Killing Spree, was:

Answer CONCORD’s call to arms and fight the Triglavians by gaining as many Skill Points as you can during Skilling Spree between 24 July and 21 August for destroying NPCs! Get rewards ranging from 10,000 Skill Points for one kill, to the rarer 50,000 Skill Points for more kills per challenge. Then, use those Skill Points to train essential skills for piloting bigger, better ships with advanced weaponry.

That strongly implied, to my mind, that players would be required to get out and shoot Triglavians in the invasion sites that have been popping up around high sec.  That has since been clarified on the event page to read (emphasis mine):

Answer CONCORD’s call to arms by fighting the Triglavians and various other foes. Gain as many Skill Points as you can during the Skilling Spree between 24 July and 21 August for destroying any NPC in New Eden! Get rewards ranging from 10,000 Skill Points for one kill, to the rarer 50,000 Skill Points for more kills per challenge. Then, use those Skill Points to train essential skills for piloting bigger, better ships with advanced weaponry.

This hearkens back to a past experiment where CCP gave us skill points if only we would login, undock, and shoot an NPC.  That was the “recurring opportunities” thing that they introduced a little over three years back.  It lasted for about a month, after which they decided that the “thrill of the hunt” was not thrilling enough and pulled it.

So now this event will give us skill points if only we will login… and undock… and shoot an NPC.   Or some NPCs.  Everything old is new again.

… to kill an NPC once a day for about a month

Only this time there is random factor involved, as your daily task will reward 10K, 25K, or 50K skill points.  Depending on how much the random number generator likes you, you could earn between 280K and 1,400K skill points.  It also lines up to how many NPCs you need to blow up, 1, 5 or 10.

Who said gambling was dead in New Eden?

Only 10K for my alpha clone

On the plus side, this isn’t a big hurdle to clear for some skill points.  And the skill point totals are about the right size to be worthwhile to a newer player.  If I were starting out… or was an Alpha clone already at the 5 million skill point cap… I would be logging in every day to shoot something.

On the down side… well… the forum thread about this event doesn’t seemed thrilled about the random nature of rewards and there is definitely a vibe in there about the value of skill points to players when CCP seems intent on handing them out regularly. (Bonus points for the new player who suggests revamping the skill point system so players upgrade skills by using them.  I think every new player goes through that phase.  I know I did.  I am pretty sure I did a post about it as well back in 2008 or so.)

Also, it doesn’t really tie into the Triglavian event.  I guess it doesn’t have to, but when you open up with something about “fighting the Triglavians” in your first sentence, some might consider it a bit of an out to basically add “or any other NPC you happen to run across.”

For example, he’ll do

Not that I am a fan of the Triglavian invasion event.  I logged in a high sec alt to give it a try, went where The Agency told me, and… nothing.  I don’t know if that system was cleared already, if I needed to do something, or even if I was setup correctly to see the Triglavians.  I am willing to bet they are off in your overview by default.  And The Agency was mute on anything beyond location, so I flew back home and did something else.

Anyway, people will complain about anything and everything if given the chance, myself included, but some will appreciate the extra skill points in whatever quantity they arrive.

The kick-off announcement for this part of the Season of Skill Points can be found here.

 

Quote of the Day – No Porn

So we’re not going to see asset flips, and we’re going to explicitly say no to porn games or other intentionally controversial games

-Tim Sweeney, Gamasutra Interview

I have been waiting for somebody to play the quality card… or at least the “no porn” card… against Steam since the day Valve announced their policy of trying to be as hands off as possible when it came to which games made it onto their service.  A policy that they couldn’t stop from biting themselves in the ass with even after they gave themselves a loophole to avoid just that.

But now Epic Games is stepping up to the plate when it comes to their store.

Not that this is a surprise.  In the online video game storefront market Steam is the undisputed king, and the only way you make gains against an entrenched competitor like that is to play to your own strengths and against their weaknesses.

Epic has been using its generous revenue policy and its control over the Unreal engine to get developers to make the jump to the Epic Store, including some exclusives.  That gets stuff in the store, but the customer doesn’t really care what the revenue deal is unless there it makes the price lower, and Steam sales are tough to beat for those patient enough to wait.

So now Epic is assailing Valve, if somewhat cautiously, on another front.  Now they are playing the quality card, indicating that they won’t be hosting crap or porn or games that just want to be edgy or controversial.  And that is fine.  We get all angsty about freedom of expression in the US, but the constitution only applies to the government censoring you.  A retail outlet refusing to sell your horrible game… or even your excellent game… isn’t a problem at all.  If it were, I doubt WalMart would still be in business.

Interestingly, Tim Sweeney also made the distinction between the Unreal engine side of the company and the store front.  They won’t be policing what people do with the Unreal engine once they license it.  But they are also making it clear that just because you are using the Unreal engine doesn’t mean there will be a spot waiting for you in the Epic Store.

We’ll see how well this plays out.  Epic doesn’t have to become Steam, they just have to grab enough exclusives… and give away enough free titles I guess… to make their store front a must have for some critical mass of gamers.  They still don’t have anything that interests me enough to sign up, but the titles I play tend to come straight from the studios that make them in any case.