PAPI Begins Pulling Out of Delve

Starting at peak EUTZ prime time yesterday PAPI finally put their long anticipated attack plan into motion.  They pushed a large number of subcaps through the gate between 1DQ and T5ZI while simultaneously black ops bridging strategic cruiser fleets into systems within the O-EIMK constellation in order to try and gain some sort of foothold.

O-EIMK Constellation – Aug 2, 2021

Pings went out for fleets on both sides.  It happened to be lunch time for me so I was able to jump in and get in the Mister Vee Eagle fleet, which warped off to the T5ZI gate in 1DQ in order to help with the defense.  Other fleets joined in and super carriers undocked and sent their fighters to the gate as well.

Off to the defense in the bubble sphere around the gate

Even as I logged in tidi was hitting 10% and there were more than 2,000 capsuleers in 1DQ, a number that would pass 4,000 at the peak of the battle.

It did not go well for PAPI.  Fleets coming through the gate into 1DQ were met with a hail of fire.  While they concentrated on the HAW dreads, Imperium forces chewed through their subcaps.

Ships in the bubbles

While the main line of the Imperium forces held the line in 1DQ, The Initiative moved out to contain the strategic cruiser drops elsewhere in the constellation, thwarting their plans, catching them refitting on a Nestor and destroying them, leaving PAPI few options.  When The Initiative was through with their mission they jumped through into T5ZI to shoot PAPI members attempting to retreat from the battle in 1DQ.

The battle report shows PAPI lost almost 3,000 ships in the clash.

Battle Report Header

The clash was enough to top the peak concurrent user number from the previous week, with 27,350 accounts logged into the game at the height of the battle.

Even before the fight in 1DQ was done there were reports that Legacy alliances were starting to unanchor structures in the areas they had taken from the Imperium, which came as a bit of a surprise to their allies.

As that news began to spread the alliances in PAPI started announcing to their members that they would be pulling out of Delve.  TEST declared victory and then said they would be leaving Delve, Querious, and Period Basis, the territory that they had vowed to live in when the war was done.

Over in the Brave meeting Dunk Dinkle was much more candid about the outcome, declaring that the Imperium had won because we were able to hold together even as the attackers started coming apart, and that they needed to leave Querious to escape the wrath of The Mittani who had apparently extended an offer to change sides about six months back.

On the Imperium side there was much rejoicing.

Celebratory doomsdays on the capitol Keepstar

We stood up to almost the entire rest of null sec for more than a year and came out the other end still in possession of our capitol and most of our assets.  I personally have very few items waiting for me in asset safety from structure losses as we had time and space to retreat back into Delve and then into 1DQ.  And we certainly had more than enough ships and pilots to repel PAPI’s final attack.

As for the war, it is far from over.  The Imperium has only become more charged up with this news.  There is much work to be done.

PAPI still needs to extract themselves from Delve.  The coalition will need to hold tight to get away safely lest the avenging Goons catch them and defeat them in detail.  Some groups will be able to safely retire back to their space.  I can’t see us going across null sec to try and attack Pandemic Horde or Fraternity, and some of the alliances that were in PAPI mostly in name towards the end will probably walk away without much impact.

But Legacy Alliance in general, and TEST in particular… if they think there will be peace living next door in their old space, they are sadly mistaken.  We all remember Vily declaring this a war of extermination against The Imperrium.  And he didn’t say that on fleet coms or in a Legacy town hall or on Talking in Stations, but to a major gaming news site.

When we started this war, we knew that we were fighting this to the end,” Vily told Polygon. “For us, this is a war of extermination. This is a war to the death. We are aiming for the removal of Mittani and The Imperium from Eve Online. […] We are here to purge them.

-Vily, in an interview with Polygon about the war

So expect that to come back to haunt him and those who follow him going forward.

Progodlegend suggested in his initial statement I listened to that TEST would just go back and take up residence in their old space… presumably after evicting some of the Imperium allies who now own a lot of it.  He blamed not being able to defeat the Imperium on game mechanics and claimed that anybody could hole up in a constellation and defend it indefinitely.   However, he didn’t seem keen to test that theory as it later came out that TEST would be headed for the Dronelands, on the eastern side of New Eden, far from Goons.  We’ll see if that is far enough.

As for who won, both sides will claim victory via various metrics of calculations.  Less than a month ago I speculated as to how the war might end.  I was wrong in thinking that PAPI wouldn’t just walk away I guess.  But I did point out that the usual ending in New Eden is that one side gives up and goes away, retreats from the field of conflict and finds a home elsewhere.  In my experience we rarely count that side the winner.

For the moment there is still a celebratory mood in 1DQ.

More V for Victory formations

We withstood the onslaught.  Now to see how the reverse of the flow plays out for us.  The last chapter of World War Bee has yet to be written.

Related:

• INN – 1DQ Status: It’s Happening (battle report)
• INN – Progod announces TEST moving to Drones as PAPI Allies abandon war
• Reddit – Transcription of TEST Post-Town Hall Statement

Four Weeks of World War Bee

Or about a month.  We’re two days shy of the one month mark.  But the was continues on.

Somebody put together a battle report in an attempt to cover all of the war through to August 1st.  The losses of both sides combined on that report tally up to around 10 trillion ISK, split about evenly between the two sides.

There are a few different data views you can look at for this report.  I favor the losses by ship/structure classes as I think it gives a better flavor as to what has been in play.

Losses by Ship/Structure Class – First Month

Overall the attackers have lost more ships, but the Imperium is losing more expensive things, with structures likely weighing against that balance.  It sits at about 93 million ISK per loss for the attackers versus about 110 million ISK per loss for the Imperium.

Heavy assault cruisers are bearing the brunt of the fighting.  For the attackers, a majority of those losses are Munnins.  The Imperium HAC losses are split between Sacrileges, Munnins, Ishtars, and Zealots, the latter two being doctrines exclusive to The Initiative and their fights in Fountain.

Munnins and Ishtars together in EI-O0O

Meanwhile, both sides are burning through quite a few interceptors, with almost seven thousand destroyed in the war so far between both sides.  Those and the HACs are a lot of tech II ships to replace.  A lot of ships and structures overall.

But so far I haven’t had a problem buying a doctrine ship off contract in Delve or refitting a hull I happened to have on hand.  The MER for July should be interesting though.  August too, if things carry on.

As for the war.

Northern Front

PandaFam continues to roll up systems in Fountain.  That have taken ihubs (and TCUs) in most of the northern half of the region, including the key transit point systems of J5A-IX and C-4NOD.  Their ihub count in the region jumped from 27 to 57 over the last week, giving them over half of the 108 conquerable systems in the region.  This is now easier to see over at DOTLAN as Wollari added in an option to the regional view to show the ihub owners. (Change covered over at The Nosy Gamer.)

Fountain ihubs – Aug 2, 2020

They have also begun to reduce the structures left behind in those systems, though so far they have not gone after a Keepstar, and there are a few of them sitting in the space they have taken.

Meanwhile, the capital fleets of The Initiative and The Bastion have begun pulling back into Delve, an operation not without mishap.

So Fountain, while not lost yet, does look like it will be almost completely in PandaFam hands in another week.  Any fighting over sovereignty is likely to take place in the southern end of the region around the crossroads system of KVN-36.  PandaFam has a foothold in I-CUVX that they can use to stage from.

South Fountain Area

We have yet to see how the Keepstars will be dealt with, so that is still in question.  The one bright side however is that, in falling back to Delve our ability to deploy forces becomes much easier.  Most of Delve is within a capital jump or titan bridge of 1DQ1-A, our primary staging.

Southern Front

After sweeping into Eastern Querious back on the 26th of July, TEST and their Legacy Coalition allies have not made much ground.  They continue to be rebuffed in Period Basis and have found themselves having to defend some of the ihubs they took in Querious as they are in easy range for us to entosis and their vulnarability windows are large due to low ADMs.  So the map shows a lot of them reinforced.

Querious ihubs – Aug 2, 2020

A lot of their stuff is reinforced while not much of ours is.

Unlike PandaFam, they have not pushed as hard on further systems to keep the focus away from the ihubs they have already taken.  They don’t seem keen to put up the same numbers they did when they took the initial systems they hold, though they have managed to take more of the United Earth Directorate ihubs, which can only be defended by the 114 character alliance that was holding them.  That has allowed them to up their ihub count to 41.  Systems with CONDI or INIT ihubs have been defended so far.

My Participation

I did get in on a few good operations, with the prime one being the dreadnought hunting operation with DBRB.

A Naglfar blows up

My PAP link numbers were down some… and it is hard to count them now as we have rolled over into a new month, and the display options are “this month” and “the last 30 days” a window which is quickly going to start dropping some of my participation.  But I am sure nobody is going to kick me for lack of effort, even if I spent a bunch of time doing stuff off the books.  I still get in fleets, though the war itself seems canted more towards EUTZ, when PandaFam operates.  USTZ has been much quieter.

My losses so far in the war are now:

• Ares interceptor – 8
• Atron entosis frigate – 4
• Drake entosis battle cruiser – 2
• Scalpel logi frigate – 2
• Purifier stealth bomber – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1

I moved my freelance entosis operations to the east end of Querious where, I have to say, Evictus is a lot more active and aggressive than Brave was in their own space.  But being on the front lines and with lots of entosis operations landing in that space, they are specifically armed to respond, though one of my Drake losses was to a third party not even involved the war.  They just hang out and hunt at that end of Querious, and have for years.  I was unlucky there.

Overall

Last week I was wondering about the popularity of the war given that it had not exactly set the player count on fire.  We will see if that changes as the war approaches the gates of Delve… at least the northern gates, where PandaFam is pushing.  But this past week’s Sunday peak was 35,479 players in the game at once, which is about on par with the Sunday before, which rang in at 35,583.

Structure warfare remains an important part of the war, though it seems to be revolving mostly around smaller structures.  I have been interested to see how the FLEX navigation structures, the Anisiblex jump gate, the Pharolux cyno beacon, and the Tenebrex cyno jammer, which came in with the Onslaught expansion almost two years ago, have been focal points of the campaign.

They are all extremely important to the Imperium and its defense operations.  Anisiblexes let us move fleets around rapidly, Pharoluxes let titans bridge fleets to systems without worrying about a cyno ship, and Tenebrexes, which not yet critical, have been used to keep hostile capitals at bay on a couple of occasions.

So the attackers have naturally targeted them.  They are relatively easy to reinforce, which puts them offline.

Covering an Ansiblex while it repairs

I have been on a couple of fleets where we have ended up at an out of service Ansiblex and had to gate somewhere the long way.  But once destroyed, they are easily replaced.  Their vulnerability has led to a change in how we have been placing them.  Some of them are starting to be located near an armed POS which, unlike Upwell structures, can be anchored within range of them.

A POS visible behind the Ansiblex

That is not going to stop a determined fleet, but it will make attacks a bit more annoying.

And, of course, because these structures are as vulnerable to reinforcement as they are, that means we can slip into TEST space and return the favor as well.

So it goes.

Addendum:

• INN summarizes week four of the war

Guess Who is Coming to Twitter

There was some news a bit back about Daybreak Games registering some new trademarks, specifically Darkpaw Games and Rogues Planet Games.

This logo may become a legacy object

Since then some of us have been waiting for a sign, and indication as to what these new company names really mean, if they mean anything at all.

This past week I wanted the latest episode of the EverQuest Show and saw they had in the background at one point an indication that maybe Twitter accounts had been setup for the new company.

So I immediately went to Twitter to search that down.  Sure enough, I quickly found @DarkpawGames along with three accounts related to Rogue Planet Games, one of the other recently registered names. They were @RoguePlanetG,  @RoguePlanetSD, and @RoguePlanetOps.   So I immediately followed them all.

Signs of a Daybreak break up?

I guess that is some indication as to a division of the company maybe?  “SD” seems likely to be “San Diego,” where Daybreak has its HQ.  “Ops” is perhaps technical status, and I have no idea what “G” might be, unless NantG Mobile, which at one point was supposed to put H1Z1 and EverQuest on our phones, is still in the picture somehow.

And then, in exploring the people who followed those four I found a fifth account.

What golden age was that?

Both Bronze Age Studios and Golden Age Studios have been thrown about in the discussion about Daybreak doing… whatever it is they are doing… but only Golden Age Studios is from the July time frame.  That it has the suffix “TX” seems a nod to a Texas location, which is where the team that works on DC Universe Online was, and probably still is, located.  Since “Golden Age” is often used to denote a specific era in comic books, it seems that maybe DCUO might be going its own way as well?

Anyway, it is all applications and speculation at this point.  We’re all still waiting for that 3pm on Friday press release that will drop the news.  If I had to guess at a day for that, I would say Friday, August 30th, since that is the Friday before a three day weekend in the US, which minimizes the amount of attention the press release is likely to get.

The Other New Rig in the House

After a practice run by building up my daughter’s new computer it was time to work on my own.

I wish I could say that I spent a lot of time digging into the details of things, but I sort of did that with the first computer, so the second one was a bit more arbitrary.  I went and browsed configs in PC Partpicker to see what looked good then threw everything together and ordered it.

I ended up with this:

• Intel – Core i7-8700K Desktop Processor 6 Cores
• Cooler Master – Hyper 212 LED CPU Cooler
• MSI – Z370 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX Motherboard
• Samsung – 860 Evo 1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
• Hitachi – 3TB UltraStar 7K3000 HUA723030ALA640
• EVGA – GeForce GTX 1060 6GB SSC GAMING ACX 3.0 Video Card
• Fractal Design – Focus G Black ATX Mid Tower Case
• EVGA – 750 GQ, 80+ GOLD 750W, Semi Modular Power Supply

Putting it all together went about as expected.  The cats needed to be involved again, and aside from when Rigby decided he needed to stand on the motherboard, they mostly contented themselves by stealing zip ties and other little items from the table.  The worst moment was when I put the video card on top of the new case, then forgot it was there and knocked it off by accident.  It fell all the way to the floor and bounced a few times, which is exactly the sort of thing you want to happen with expensive new electronics.  Fortunately my bare foot broke the initial impact, though I did have to stop to bandage up the bleeding gouge it left.

I went for the “a few dollars more” approach that often grips me when I am purchasing the CPU.  That is the core bit of the build, the part I am never going to change, so I tend to buy beyond my needs.  Six cores, twelve threads, maybe somebody will make a game that will use all of that some day.  Right now it barely wakes up to get WoW or EVE Online moving.

I do want to give a shout out to Cooler Master for their CPU cooler kits.  I’ve built up four machines this decade, two with their kits and two without, and I have to say they are good.  The i7 doesn’t come with a stock cooler, and after fumbling with the Zalman I bought but ended up not using for my daughter’s rig, I was feeling tentative on the whole subject.  But I remembered that Cooler Master install from 2010 and decided to go with them again.

And I am glad I did.  Their install kit isn’t revolutionary or anything, but it has an extra step in it that makes all the difference.  I’m always a bit nervous when working on the CPU and the cooler and the motherboard at the start, getting that back plate mounting lined up and set.  But the Cooler Master kit makes it easy.

Then there is the motherboard.  For no good reason I went with the MSI full ATX model.  Having WiFi and Bluetooth on board seemed like a good idea.  It actually let me stand up the computer out in the family room where I was doing the build before moving it back in my office for the direct hookup to the router.  Did I really need the LED lighting on the motherboard though?

Mystic Light!

Well, you know I have it on and running.  There is even an app that comes with it to control it… which is hardly a surprise because MSI included at least a dozen different applications to control various aspects of the motherboard, all of which use the Windows 10 alert system to tell me when there are updates.  Anyway, I had the app.

Mystic Light Control

Apparently if I had multiple MSI devices that supported the Mystic Light option, I could get them all to pulse various colors like the floor in Saturday Night Fever.  All I would need is a strobe and a fog machine, and we’ll get to the former.

Having gone with a full ATX, I needed a bigger case than the tight little model I bought my daughter.  While I like the Cooler Master cases, I was attracted to some of the Fractal Design models as well, and ended up going with the model linked above.

On the bright side, it looks good, had a spot for my optical drive, space for the new hard drive and a couple of old ones, and good ventilation features, with two very quiet 120mm fans included with the case.

On the downside, the space under the motherboard is tighter than I would have liked.  My daughter’s case was a dream in that regard, while this one was a much tougher fit.  The two fans have white LED lighting that has an unfortunate resemblance to a swastika.

Not exact, but you can see it

And then there is the HDD read/write light on the top of the front panel which is so bright it ought to come with a seizure warning.  Seriously, this thing was in the same league as those survival beacons a friend’s dad, who was a Navy flier, used to have around.  I put a piece of masking tape over it and my office still probably looked like a gun battle was going on from outside.  So I put a piece of duct tape over the masking tape and I can STILL see the light.

It shines through this no problem

But at least I don’t feel like I am in a disco anymore when in my office with the lights out.

I did, however, cop out when it came to the video card.  CPUs are forever, video cards I’ll replace every year or two.  And, while video card prices are coming down, I couldn’t get on board spending $450 or more to get a serious boost over my old card.  So the GeForce 1060 was a compromise.  It is a bit better than my old one, draws less power, and produces less heat, but it isn’t a dramatic change at all.  The dropping value of crypto currency means I might be good to upgrade in a year or so. (The story behind that.)

And then there was the move from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

At this point most of the issues have been worked out of Windows 10.  And while I could have gone with Windows 7 again, it is falling out of support in 2020, which I am reliably informed arrives in less than two years.  Given how long I stayed with Win7, it was probably time to move on.

Still, there was some things to get used to.  While it wasn’t the Window-menu free abomination that was Win8, I do miss the compact, list everything as one-line aspect of Win7.  And the update notifications are a little more in my face than I would like.  Also, why the hell did they take the mixer out of the sound option on the task bar.  I used that ALL THE TIME.  Now it is hidden in the control panel somewhere, so I have to go find it to make Minecraft quieter so I can hear my audio book.

I did also opt to go with Zinstall’s transfer utility to move things to the new machine.  It didn’t matter with my daughter’s machine.  Going from MacOS to Windows meant full reinstalls anyway.  But for all the crap I have, I decided to go for it.  I used it for my wife’s last computer upgrade and that went well.  It isn’t cheap, and it isn’t perfect, but I don’t think there is a better option for getting everything over and in a running and configured state.  I had to go find the product key for my copy of Office 2013, but when I opened up Notepad++ all my documents opened up just like they had before.

Anyway, I am setup and running and on the new machine in under a week, which frankly beyond expectations.  I have a couple more fans on order for the case, just to complete the cooling vision.  I miss the big 210mm case door fan on my old Cooler Master HAF case, but I’ll make do.

Marching North to War in New Eden

The State of the Goonion came and went.  The Hell March from Command and Conquer was played, always a harbinger of a long slog somewhere , along with the Hymm of the Soviet Union, the ironic-but-not-really nod to the fact that the bunch of nominal libertarians running the Imperium have found that autocratic socialism is the only way to effectively run their empire.

The Fat Bee calls us…

The Mittani then spoke, hurfing and blurfing, which is the term of art in null sec for the bombastic propaganda in which alliances tend to engage at such times, about rather non-specific foes, finally announcing that we would be heading North.

He then noted that air of non-specificity about much of his hurfing and blurfing, saying that intel indicated than almost everybody in the north was sure we were really gunning for them and that he wasn’t keen to let anybody relax just yet, doubly so since this was all broadcast over Twitch with many of our potential foes watching.  A transcript is available an Imperium News.

The only details that we got were that we would likely tangle with two ongoing conflicts.  The first is an ongoing struggle in the Syndicate region between our own Initiative and Mercenary Coalition, where it was obvious with who we would side.  The second was TEST’s deployment north to fight with Darkness and their friends, where he had to to make clear we would be cooperating with TEST.  The last time we allied with TEST in any way was back during their Summer 2012 conquest of Delve, at the end of which was the break that led to the Fountain War and so on.

That still leaves a lot of room… and a lot of space… and other groups… unmentioned but possibly in the way.  What would really speak to our intentions was where we ended to staging.  All we were told about that was we would be staging our of low sec.  That leaves three possible regions from which to base.

Some regions in the North

If the target areas are as The Mittani said, and I wouldn’t put a ruse de guerre of announcing the wrong targets past him, then there are only three low sec regions that make sense as staging.  There is Placid, which puts us close to Syndicate, but also gives us a pipe to Pure Blind.  There is Black Rise, which is further from Syndicate, but gives us the back door route to Pure Blind and Fade via Cloud Ring.  And then there is Lonetrek where returning to Saranen would put us back on the doorstep of our former homeland with routes into Pure Blind and Tribute, but which is the furthest from Syndicate.

My gut says Lonetrek is the place and that Syndicate was mentioned to muddy the water.  But it would take a move op to find out where we were headed.

Move ops were immediately announced for the Euro Time Zone.  I would have to wait until I got home from work before joining up with the first US Time Zone move ops.

The call came early in the evening, with fleets up for capitals, shield doctrine subcaps, and armor doctrine subcaps.  Since I only had one armor doctrine ship I planned on bringing, but three shield doctrine ships, I opted for the shield fleet, logging in my alt and my main and joining up.

The shield fleet was made of mostly light ships, frigates and destroyers, so my pair fit right in.  I was running a Bifrost command destroyer and a Purifier stealth bomber north because they were special fits that I expected I wouldn’t be able to find on contract later once we settled into our staging.

My Bifrost zipping about

Theoretically our light fleet could move north pretty rapidly and be setup in out destination in an hour or so.  However, all the move ops would be coordinating, and our fleet of light ships would be used to shepherd the capitals, scare off any tacklers, and to scout.  So our pace was dictated by the pace of the capitals.  We would spread out over a corridor of gate and watch the capitals pass, then catch up to them as the hit a point from which they would jump.

Capitals collecting up on a Fortizar

Once they jumped we would free burn to catch up with them and start the process all over again, covering them as they gated while their jump fatigue timers ran down so they could jump again.

We also kept an eye on the armor doctrine fleet, made up mostly of Typhoon battleships, shepherding their stragglers and making sure everybody was safe.

The Typhoon ball passing through us again

That turned what would have been a quick trip for us into a slow slog, with many stops as we waited for caps to group up again or jump or otherwise get on with their own slow journey.

Capitals lolling about on a station waiting on their timer

So the whole thing stretched out beyond the three hour mark before we reached our destination in the north.  But it was necessary.  The Euro TZ capital op had some problems with hostiles on its trip north earlier in the day and a couple of stragglers had been tackled and blown up.  So we had to take care lest the same occur on our watch.  And the hostiles were out there, their ships not always subtle in name.

Cloaked and watching a Malediction watching our cap fleet

In another call back to 2012, I actually saw Makalu Zarya, one of the main opposition FCs from the Delve war back then, along the way north. He’s in NCDot, so we might be shooting at him again.

And when we finally arrived at our destination citadel, we were told that it was not our staging system, but just a waypoint where multiple move ops could collect up and be ready to move to and secure our actual staging point.

Meanwhile, down in Delve, with the local numbers reduced as combat pilots streamed north, the mining care bears were learning just how effective the defense network can be as Rorqual losses started adding up.  I expect that the monthly economic report for August will show a significant drop in Delve mining.  However, I bet that doesn’t change the price of tritanium in Jita, since we use all we mine in Delve and have to import more.

So that is what I saw on the way north.  We’ll see where we end up and when combat operations actually begin.  SynCaine is on his way north as well, so he’ll have his own perspective.  Until then there is a silly video about lighting beacons/cynos across New Eden.

The Pokemon 20th Anniversary Continues with an Arceus Event and More

The celebration of the 20th anniversary of Pokemon continues.  This month’s legendary Pokemon is Arceus, a legendary Pokemon that first showed up as a special download during the Pokemon Platinum era.

Arceus of Legend

This month the Pokemon 20th Anniversary event requires another visit to GameStop to pick up a card with a code to claim Arceus.  I haven’t been by the store yet, but I suggest getting out early.  With previous such GameStop Pokemon card events, the cards have gone quickly, often ending up on for sale eBay.

Arceus is another legendary Pokemon I remember going to an event to collect back in 2009 as part of the war up for Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver.

Arceus pre-event promo, August 2009

As before, the code on the card is only good for Pokemon X & Y or Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire on the Nintendo 3DS or 3DS XL.

Upcoming download events for the rest of 2016 are:

• September – Victini (Nintendo Network)
• October – Keldeo (Nintendo Network)
• November – Genesect (GameStop)
• December – Meloetta (Nintendo Network)

Meanwhile, we are continuing to get more news about the upcoming Pokemon Sun & Moon, due out later this year.

Sun and Moon coming in November

One of the lastest tidbits is about the Pokemon players will encounter in the Alola region, the setting for Pokemon Sun & Moon, which is modeled on the Hawaiian islands.  In addition to new Pokemon, there will be “regional variants” of some traditional Pokemon.

Variations on what we know

From the site:

Pokémon Adapted to the Alola Region

Some Pokémon have adapted to the distinctive microclimates of the Alola region, taking on different forms than they have in other regions. These Pokémon are called regional variants. Taking root in the Alola region, they live like native Pokémon. Regional variant Pokémon can have different appearances and types, and their ways of living can also differ from that of the forms previously known.

I am not sure how I feel about that.  On the one hand, they did pick a few choice Pokemon to use, but on the other, it does seem a bit like a cheap copy/paste method to fill out the required minimum 150 new Pokemon that need to show up for any new region.   I suppose I should be glad of it, as there are so many Pokemon at this point (721 total in the current full National Pokedex) that I am not sure I could remember 150 more, so new flavors of old ones might be a good thing.

And, finally, the Pokemon 2016 World Championships , which combine both the trading card game and the video game versions, are coming to San Francisco, August 19-21.

Pokemon comes to Baghdad by the Bay

I would buy a poster-size copy of that graphic.

Living just an hour’s drive away, I may have to see if I can roust the child out of the house to go up and see what is going on.  They usually have side events or special downloads for spectators… or maybe just some Pokemon GO hunting in a new location.

Blaugust is Upon Us

It is Blaugust again.  In fact, we are now three days into Blaugust and I am only now getting around to putting up a post about it.

But that is okay, because, because this year it is Blaugust, the Super Relaxed Edition, so you can probably show up late and still be totally okay.

The idea is that, rather than the “post every day for a month” routine of the last two years, this year you can select your posting schedule.  Then so long as you keep to your planned schedule, you win… for whatever value “winning” has in such an event.  It is sort of like bracket racing… for blogging… without the racing part.

Belghast has a post up explaining the whole idea with a link so you can sign up.  I signed up for the “every week day” bracket, which is basically “business as usual” around here.  We shall see if I keep to that, or if the Blaugust spirit infects me and I post every day.

Belghast also has a post up listing which blogs are involved and what posting schedule they are looking to hit.  The list, which I totally stole from that post, currently stands at:

Daily Posts

• Aeternus Gaming
• Bio Break
• Bravetank
• I’m Not Squishy
• JamiesVLogUK
• Lair of the Wolf Dragon
• Leaflocker
• MMO Quests
• Moonshine Mansion
• Nerdy Bookahs
• Nerf the Cat
• Overly Positive
• Tales of the Aggronaut
• Thalen Speaks
• The Hybrid Journal

Weekday Posts

• A Green Mushroom
• Aywren Sojourner
• Book of Jen
• Floortank
• MMOBro
• The Ancient Gaming Noob

Three Posts a Week

• Dragons & Whimsy
• Gamer Girl Confessions
• Psychochild’s Blog
• Ravalation
• Welshtroll
• Yorkshire Pudding Gone Rogue

Some Other Schedule

• Fantasy Inquisition
• Flashpoint
• Inventory Full
• LFGryph
• Light Falls Gracefully
• Pizza Maid
• Pleasant Gamer

As Time and Inspiration Allows

• Contains Moderate Peril
• Hestiah! WTF?!
• Knifesedge Blogs
• MMO Gypsy
• Shadowz Gaming Blog
• The Dàchéng Diaries

There is also some suggested hash tagging or other cross promotional things mentioned, all of which I am generally pretty bad at, as well as a topic suggestion/discussion group over on Anook.  We shall see how Blaugust works out in its super relaxed form I guess.