39 Weeks of World War Bee

We’re around the horn and well into the back stretch of this war lasting a full year.  All we have to do is make it to July 5th and we’re there.

This past week saw PAPI offer the “Silk Road” exit plan for Imperium members looking to exit the war and extract their capital ships safely.

The offer – You will probably need to click on the image to make it legible

The claim is that one Imperium pilot has already moved a faction titan out of the war zone, though it almost died along the way because PAPI wasn’t communicating well enough to cover safe passage.   This offer is akin to the Golden and Silver ticket offers that the Imperium offered PAPI members when their titans were trapped in M2-XFE and seems about as popular.

This led to a parody offer from low sec appearing on Reddit shortly thereafter.

There was plenty of time to contemplate offers and write parodies because the actual war has largely devolved into a series of structure bashes.  In Delve (and Querious) that has meant PAPI getting some more high profile Keepstar kills in systems they were able to cyno jam to prevent Imperium capitals and supers from intervening.

Keepstar Kills in Week 39

Meanwhile, the Imperium has been racking up its own tally of structure kills in the territories that Legacy Coalition abandoned, Catch, Immensea, and Impass.  There haven’t been any keepstar kills yet there, but there are a few on the menu that Legacy will either have to let die or move to defend.

Delve Front

PAPI has reiterated their desire to burn down the Imperium capital in 1DQ1-A once they get done with bashing structures outside of the O-EIMK constellation… which could take them a while.

The view from 1DQ1-A

Meanwhile, The Mittani called for an increase state of readiness in case PAPI does decide to assault the Imperium capital.  Members of the coalition were asked to stock up on ships likely to be uses in a defense of the constellation, to make sure that fittings on dreads, carriers, faxes, supers, and titans were up to date, and that people had bookmarks setup for various locations in the constellation that could be useful if a fight develops.

The ihub in 9O-8W1, which had been unclaimed for a while, was picked up by Already Replaced, so I can’t just re-use the previous map this week around.

Delve – Apr 4, 2021

I also had to update the map because the metaliminal storm that had wandered off towards Fountain, reversed course and headed back into Delve again, and was centered in T5ZI-S as of yesterday.  Being an electrical type storm, systems affected (highlighted in shades of purple) do not allow cloaking.  This storm covering most of the Imperium capital constellation, it is something of boon for the Imperium, as it means that cloaky camping eyes have to stay logged off or get scanned down.

Other Theaters

The battle over ihubs is over now in Catch, Immensea, and Impass, so I feel freed from having to post maps of those regions for now.  These former Legacy Coalition home regions were no longer being defended and the Imperium and its allies have been blowing up structures without opposition.

Likewise, the situation in Querious appears to be settled for now, with Brave, Severance, Sentinel Dawn, and TEST holding most of the ihubs.

The only hot spots in the war outside of Delve… which isn’t all that hot of a spot right now… are Esoteria and Fountain.

In Esoteria The Bastion and its allies have been in a back and forth struggle with Army of Mango and Evictus over the remains of TEST’s holdings in the region.

Esoteria – Apr 4, 2021

And then there is Fountain, where Federation Uprising continues to push into the region, taking ihubs from The Initiative and Siberian Squads, both of whom have been busy elsewhere.

Fountain – Apr 4, 2021

My Participation

I responded to a few op pings, undocked once, and neither had to rep nor fire a shot in anger as the enemy had run back to their staging by the time we were pointed their way.

I did get my monthly dividend payment from the Imperium war bonds I purchased.

There is a notification for that now

I spent that… 41 million ISK… and about 2 billion more stocking up on some ships for the coming battle.  2 billion ISK doesn’t go as far as it used to.  The rise in mineral prices and the scramble to buy things before CCP implements their next big change has found its way down the supply chain to me.

Anyway, as such my losses for the war remain unchanged this week.

• Ares interceptor – 17
• Malediction interceptor – 7
• Crusader interceptor – 5
• Atron entosis frigate – 6
• Rokh battleship – 5
• Scimitar logi – 4
• Ferox battle cruiser – 4
• Drake battle cruiser – 4
• Purifier stealth bomber – 3
• Guardian logi – 2
• Scalpel logi frigate – 2
• Raven battleship – 1
• Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
• Gnosis battlecruiser – 1
• Bifrost command destroyer – 1
• Cormorant destroyer – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
• Sigil entosis industrial – 1
• Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1

Other Items

CCP launched The Hunt event, which includes Guristas sites to run, login rewards, and the usual round of sales promotions.

Live now in New Eden

That has another week to run, so you still have time to start logging in to collect the daily rewards.

Then there was April Fools where CCP did a bit of knife twisting.  For as long as I can remember… which honestly isn’t all that far back at my age… people have been asking for a low sec gate connection to the Stain region, which is otherwise an NPC controlled null sec area that is farmed for LP for implants and BPCs.  To get to stain you have to run what has been at times a pretty well camped gauntlet of systems in Catch.  CCP decided to yank the chain of those who have been asking for a low sec route into the region by announcing the gate on April Fools.

No gate for you

The Stain Russians are once again thwarted.

Meanwhile, the peak user count for the week settled back down a bit.  With an event going on there is often a bit or a spike in the count, but this week a fight didn’t break out right at the usual peak time of the day to help goose the numbers a bit.

• 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)

Related

• INN – World War Bee: Week 39
• INN – Grasshopper and Master Po Talk About The War
• INN – Goons != BoB
• INN – The Siege
• INN – Spotlight: Frost Ees Op
• NEP – PAPI’s Silk Road Offer
• Kotaku – EVE Online’s Latest Front is the Battle of the Bands

The Badlands Crypt

When we were out in the Badlands for turned out to be our final run at Uldaman, Skonk and I were hanging around one of the NPCs camps waiting for everybody to collect up.  Bouncing around, as people do when they’re ready to go, I started running up and down the peak where the camp was located, only to spot something I couldn’t recall seeing before.

Up the hill above the camp, Skronk down below on his mount

I’ve probably been here before, but it has been almost a decade since Cataclysm changed the old world, so I am not sure it is there anymore.  And, in any case, it has been many more years since I was actively leveling up in the Badlands.  So I went in to check it out.

The crypt invites

There are no mobs or anything in the crypt.  It is all static and very quiet.  But there is a tableau set up at the bottom.

Down in the heart of the crypt

I am sure somebody spent some time setting up and arranging everything just so.  The whole thing implies that there is a tale to be told about this, if only there was somebody around who witnessed the events.

All in all, there was nothing in the crypt that gained me even a single experience point, but it was a bit of an experience all the same.  Another of the little details strewn about old Azeroth.

Faster Selo Server, Faster!

Daybreak continues to explore just what “fast” or “casual” or whatever means in terms of a progression server as they announced a boost in experience gain on the Selo server that launched with the 20th anniversary.

Selo moves even faster

From the forum post by Holly Longdale:

We have been watching and evaluating community concerns by playing on Selo before and after the experience bonus in order to gauge pacing. Given we envisioned this as our fastest progression server, we do want to keep the feel of the 50% bonus players have had as part of the Selo experience for the past three weeks. With the 50% bonus, Selo feels in line with how we presented the intent of the server.

As of noon PDT on Friday (today), the 50% bonus is permanent. After the update on the 17th, the server’s base rates will be updated in code so that future XP bonus days will affect the new, increased XP rates making them truly ridiculous (by EQ standards!).

We’ll continue to evaluate the experience rate – and other rates – as we move forward to make sure it delivers on our vision of Selo without breaking continuity and progression.

I suppose it isn’t so much of a boost as it is a return to what thee experience rate was for the balance of March, when there was a 50% experience boost game-wide.  Players on the Selo server apparently got used to that boosted rate and have been asking for it back in the forums.

I am not sure where that places the experience curve relative to the live servers, since they said it was going to be slower than live initially, but this should allow people to keep up with the speedy unlock schedule detailed in the FAQ for the server.

This does not apply to the other progression servers that Daybreak launched back on March 16.

Covering the EverQuest Anniversary

I was interested to see what sort of coverage the EverQuest 20th anniversary would get.

20 Years Ago last month…

At one time EverQuest was a relatively big deal, bordering on being part of the broader culture.  But its cultural peak was brief, small, and a long time ago.  Now it is practically ancient history as a whole generation of kids have been born and grown into adults since it launched.

Where I was surprised was how the level of coverage seemed to be a bit turned on its head relative to the proximity to the topic a publication was.

That wasn’t wholly true.  PC Gamer did a series of great articles about the game, its history, and its state of play these days.

• How is classic MMO EverQuest still alive after two decades?
• The story of EverQuest, the MMO that changed everything
• Our 7 favorite stories of death and adventure from 20 years of Everquest
• Looking back at the researchers who tried to understand EverQuest

The had an interview with EverQuest Executive Producer Holly Longdale in that first link that unearthed the following gems of information about the game via quotes:

• “We have more players now than we did in 2015 and our revenue has gone up.”
• “I’m not allowed tell you exactly how many people have come through the game over the years, but it’s enough to sustain us.”
• “So we just have an agreement in place that they [Project 1999] don’t launch stuff around the same time we do.”
• “Our biggest customer service request is people asking what email they used for their EverQuest account 15 years ago, because they want to log back in and play with their old characters again.”
• “Every three years we do a level increase, and we have changed the way some things work.”
• A new expansion, The Burning Lands, was released in December last year, and another is on the way.
• “But fundamentally, we don’t want to change the game. It’s like when we did the New Game Experience for Star Wars Galaxies and everyone quit.”

On the flip side though there was GameSpot, whose cultural relevance peak mirrors that of EverQuest, who just posted the anniversary trailer… early… without much comment and moved on, while Eurogamer, who is often in the forefront of video game reporting, declined to even mention the anniversary.

Then there was Variety, an unexpected source of any information that isn’t strictly a press release, which uncovered perhaps the biggest scoop about EverQuest Next we’d heard in five years, not to mention shining a bit of light on the factional strife that seemed to be going on behind the scenes… a conflict the traditionalists, with Holly Longdale at their head, looks to have won for now.

Adding on that was a post over a Gamasutra, which wasn’t strictly news coverage, by EverQuest team member Luke Sigmund.  But it did lend further insight into the team there while also throwing out a bit of information about why corpse runs stopped being a thing.  Yes, what you believe was part of the equation, but there was also a technical limitation to it as well that made it desirable to do away with this punishing mechanic.  (You do still lose experience on death though, and can still lose levels, something TorilMUD, the template for EverQuest, got rid of a few years ago.)

There was an article up at Rock Paper Shotgun that elaborated on some of the topics already covered, including more detail on the relationship with Project 1999 for example.

Finally, coming in a bit late was an article over at Polygon which started off down the same path as some of the above, about how EverQuest was pretty much set on mining their installed base rather than trying to seek new fans.  But there was a nugget dropped in the statement that one third of the games profits come from “nostalgia” players, which I would read as those interested in the progression server thing that EverQuest has been so good with.

And that was followed by a statement about the current servers they are using, which have four times the capacity of the originals.  This led to some back of the envelope calculation by Bhagpuss in some email notes we exchanged that led to a possibility that peak concurrent players across all servers, given some assumptions such as when server status shows “full” that a given server is at 50% capacity, might be as high as 60K players some days.  That could explain the initial statement on which I based a post a while back trying to compare how many people play EverQuest versus EVE Online.  And since we know concurrent players peak in the low 30K range in New Eden, perhaps that was the basis of the original premise.

All of which made for some interesting reading last month.  Every anniversary brings out some trivia about the game, bits of nostalgia or some form of infographic.  But this year it feels like we learned a few interesting facts about the state of the game and the team that runs it.

Ultima Online Adds a Free to Play Option

In an item of note today, Ultima Online becomes the last of the “big three” MMORPGs from the late 90s to jump into the free to play pool.  EverQuest went to FreeVille back on its 13th birthday in 2012 with the SOE “Free to Play Your Way” campaign while Asheron’s Call went free… back in August 2014 I think.  It was at some point after they decided bringing back Asheron’s Call 2 was a good plan, but before they turned them both off for good early last year.

Welcome indeed

While the plan was announced a while back, today with Publish 99 Broadsword, the minders of the game since 2014, have added a free to play option called the “Endless Journey.”

This new option will be available to new accounts as well as any previously created account that has not been subscribed in the last 120 days.  I guess that is one way to keep people from just unsubscribing when you add a free option, though I am not sure banishing current players for 3 months if they want to go down the free path is necessarily sending the right message.

There is, of course, the usual list of things that free accounts can and cannot do.  In the case of UO, the list is pretty long.

You’re going to have to click on this to make it readable

This list is also part of the Publish 99 release notes linked above, but I thought I would take a snap shot of the day one version in case it changes at some future date.

I really know very little about Ultima Online, having never played it, so I cannot speak to whether the restrictions on the Endless Journey option are going to really push people to subscribe after they have tried the game.  But I do know from experience that when you go free to play with an MMORPG the plan is to drive people to subscribe, get people to buy from the cash shop, or both.

Either way this does make it a bit more likely that Ultima Online will be my choice for my 2018 goal of playing one of the early MMORPGs I have never tried.

Battle for Azeroth Coming August 14th

Blizzard announced the launch date for the next World of Warcraft expansion this morning.  Battle for Azeroth is slated to go live on August 14, 2018.

From the Blizzard site

Of course, we knew the expansion was coming some time this year.  The usual cycle dictates about every two years and when the pre-order came out the time frame was given as on or before September 21.

That would put the time between Battle for Azeroth and WoW Legion as 728 days, not the shortest time between expansions, but well shy of the longest stretch.

• WoW Launch to The Burning Crusade – 784 days
• The Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King – 667 days
• Wrath of the Lich King to Cataclysm – 754 days
• Cataclysm to Mists of Pandaria – 658 days
• Mists of Pandaria to Warlords of Draenor – 778 days
• Warlords of Draenor to Legion – 670 days
• Legion to Battle for Azeroth – 728 days

I personally had picked August 28 as the launch date back in my predictions for the year.  Being off by two weeks will cost me 4 points when the accounting comes, but still not too far off.  Either way, I’ll have time for a bit of a break before the pre-launch patch comes online and kicks of the starter events for the expansion.

We shall see if the late August launch will give Blizzard enough time to clear the decks and make WoW Classic a prime talking point at BlizzCon a couple of months afterwards.

 

FR-B1H – Force Auxiliaries can Save Your Supers

In hindsight, it was probably a pretty sure thing that an alliance prone to dropping capitals without sufficient force auxiliary support would end up paying for it.  Faxes aren’t that expensive as far as capitals go and enough of them will save your supers.

And so it happened to Circle of Two when they collided with Pandemic Legion and Goonswarm yesterday in FR-B1H in Impass.  There is a report about the fight up at EN24 by a member of PL that details how things played out.  But the net result was five CO2 titans down and about 870 billion ISK in losses overall for the alliance.

Battle Report divided into the usual sides

This all happened while I was at work, as these things tend to.  Even B-R5RB started while I was at the office, it just carried on long enough for me to finish work, go home, eat dinner, and then join in.  But it was all over Reddit and the topic of the day on coalition coms last night.  I’ve already heard/read a few variations of the fight and how it escalated, but the main items seem to agree and from that a couple of items stand out.

The first is the use of force auxiliaries, or faxes, and CO2’s lack of them as they jumped into the fight.  This allowed the CO2 supers to be destroyed as there were not enough repair reps on field to save them.  CO2 seemed to be following a policy of “jump first, organize later” in order to first save the initial Rorqual and then to counter the growing PL capital fleet.

And I compare this to my own experience with this sort of situation.  In fact, not that many hours before the events in Impass the Imperium faced a similar situation in Y-OMTZ in Delve.  Again, Pandemic Legion was dropping dreads, this time on a Rorqual in our space.  A Ping went out for an fast fleet form with an emphasis on faxes.  The coalition has been pushing for everybody to train into and have a fax on hand.  We formed up, got undocked, and once a critical mass had been met… and the cyno inhibitor that PL dropped was destroyed… we jumped in as a mass.  That led to a less out-of-balance battle report result.

The drop at Y-OMTZ

We were even able to save a Leviathan that jumped in on its own and looked to done for until we landed and were able to rep it with the faxes on grid.  Coming in mass with lots of reps changed the result.  PL came out ahead, but the exchange hit both sides about the same.  If we had been able to save the single Hel we lost, the ratio would have been in our favor.

The counter drop on the field in Y-OMTZ

The second item that stands out from what I heard was how fighters were deployed on both sides.  PL came armed with space superiority fighters, the fighters meant to shoot down opposing fighters.  On the CO2 side of things it is alleged that, when asked whether or not his carrier pilots should bring space superiority fighters, GigX responded that they should not because he would not be calling fighters as targets.

This led to CO2’s carriers and super carriers losing almost 400 squadrons of fighters, adding 5 billion ISK to their loss total and rendering many of their carriers impotent as they ran out of fighters to deploy.  That couldn’t have helped out the CO2 cause.  Having counters to fighters ought to be another lesson learned here.

Another day in New Eden.

I haven’t been keeping close count of titan kills for a while, but adding FR-B1H to the last list I made sorts events out as such:

• B-R5RB – 74 titans down (plus one on the way to the fight)
• FR-B1H – 5 titans down
• Okagaiken – 4 titans down
• Asakai – 3 titans down
• KVN-36 – 2 titans down

Have there been any other multi-titan loss events to add to that list.

Finally, I guess I have to give credit to CO2 for one thing.  In our battle we failed to save two of the three Rorquals that got dropped.  CO2 saved theirs.  So they have that going for them.

Two Books about EVE Online

Recently two books about EVE Online have become available for purchase, so I thought I would take a moment to gesticulate in their general direction.

Empires of EVE

The first is Andrew Groen’s opus about the Great War in New Eden, Empires of EVE.

How much more black could it be?

The product of a Kickstarter campaign almost two years back that funded almost immediately and went on to exceed all expectations, the result is a wonder.  It is a compelling read, a story well told that doesn’t require knowledge of EVE Online to enjoy. The only way to surpass the book is to hear to Andrew Groen talk about it (as I got to at EVE Vegas), as his passion for the topic clearly comes through.  And there are even a couple of screen shots I took as illustration, including one of my favorites on page 145.

Burning to the titan

The screen shot was from the DBRB fleet to attack Raiden capital ships in BWF-ZZ back in 2012.  Unfortunately, in the book, it is mis-captioned as a Machariel fleet when it is a Hurricane fleet.  But who am I to complain about minor errors?  I make more than my share.

Anyway, now that the Kickstarter backers have received their copies, you can get your own copy of the book.  There is a site setup that lets you purchase the book through Amazon.  I assume there is some benefit to Andrew in the purchase being referred from his site, so I would use that if only to encourage him to work on a volume II, because if there is a single problem with the book, it is that it leaves you wanting more.

There is also a video to go along with the release of the book about the siege of C-J6MT.

The book is available in hardcover, softcover, and Kindle format.

So we have that.  But wait, there is more.

Internet Spaceships are Serious Business

Launched a bit more quietly than Empires of EVE, this is a more academic look at EVE Online.

Serious business indeed

If Empires of EVE is the tale of a war, Internet Spaceships are Serious Business is a guide to what the game is about and the motivations of people who put enough into the game to make something like the Great War come about.

I grabbed the Kindle version over the weekend and started in on it.  It is welcoming to those uninitiated to New Eden and doesn’t assume you know much as it builds, chapter on chapter, about the game.

As with Empires of EVE, it is available in hardcover, softcover, and Kindle format over at Amazon.

So if you don’t necessarily want to play EVE Online but enjoy reading about it, here are a couple of chances to get immersed in the topic without even having to download the game.