23 Weeks of World War Bee

We lost another Keepstar while trying to unanchor it.  This time we managed to unanchor the structure ourselves, so PAPI didn’t steal it, but the jump freighter that was sent to scoop it got popped and the Keepstar was destroyed with the ship.  Some day we’ll get one unachored successfully

Then we lost a second one down in Period Basis and the one in NOL-M9 looks to be in danger.   It was not a good week on the Keepstar front for us.

This has added up to a lot of low effort trolling in /r/eve about why Goons won’t admit they have lost the war.  That makes we want to pull out the quote from early in the war, which Vily has reiterated over and over with the full support of his alliance and coalition:

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

Leaving aside the fact that so long as we are still in the game we haven’t lost according to Vily’s stated victory condition, there really isn’t another exit from the war for us.  If Mittens said we’ve lost, that wouldn’t stop the invasion.  If you don’t leave somebody an out then they have nothing to lose if they keep fighting.

You might think that some moderation may have entered the picture since that Polygon article, which ran back in September.  But you would be wrong.

IGN published an article about the war this past week which offers a good summary of what is going on.  But within it you will find Vily bringing up the same end goal.  The war of extermination is still on.  Vily has set the parameters of the war and we have no place better to be.  1DQ1-A is where most of our stuff is now, so that is where we’ll stay.

CCP has also turned its eye back to the war.  With the Triglavian event over they found time to write up a post about the battle at FWST-8, which renewed two Guinness World Records for the company back in early October.  Lots of charts and graphs.

On another front, Massively OP named World War Bee as the Best MMO Event of 2020.

And then there is the ongoing forgotten rigs meme, which hit Vily again this past week.  Madcows of Elitist Ops was nice enough to contract them back.

Available for pickup

We’ll see if he picks them up from our Keepstar in D-W7F0. (Which you can do, it would just be risky.)

Delve Front

The week opened with a bang.  Pretty much as my Week 22 summary post went live PAPI tried to break down the door to 1DQ1-A with their headshot plan to take out the cyno jammers and reinforce the ihub.  We managed to thwart their attempt, but it looked like it was finally going to be Game On.  They were finally going to come and get us.

On the ihub grid

This was what we were waiting for and people on our side were itching for a return bout.

And then everything went back to the slow skirmishes over ihubs and small structures and whatever in Delve.  Not much happened.  Some ihubs changed hands, we botched the Keepstar scoop, and Vily forgot to fit his rigs again.

Delve – Dec. 13, 2020

One environmental change occurred however.  That metaliminal storm I mentioned in Querious last week got on its bike and rode into Delve, landing in SVM-3K.  It is an electrical type storm, which is the one that disables the ability to cloak.  If that keeps moving into the region it could mean some fun times.

Other Theaters

The re-invasion of Fountain announced which I mentioned last week seems to have fallen flat, likely due to lack of interest.

Fountain – Dec. 13, 2020

NCDot had a dozen ihubs there last week, now they have three.  The Initiative, the alleged target, has deployed elsewhere, but somebody seems to be pushing back in their space time.

Also, the metaliminal storm in Fountain, unlike the one now in Delve, seemed content to just meander about its pocket.

Querious remains an entosis skirmish zone.  Systems sit with no ihubs installed as both sides seem tired of them changing hands.

Querious – Dec. 13, 2020

The metaliminal storm in Delve is still on the border with Querious, so its effects still spill into the region despite the distance that regional gate spans.  New Eden storm logic I guess.

In northwest Esoteria, while The Initiative has moved on The Bastion, Ferrata Victrix, and the Stain Russians continue to keep the region from being a safe spot in the Legacy backfield.

Northwest Esoteria – Dec. 13, 2020

And this week we have a new entry in the secondary fronts, which is Catch.  I mentioned this in a post on Saturday and indicated that it too would now have to be included on this list.

The Initiative has set up shop in the system of 0SHT-A (universally referred to as “Oh Shit!”) in the NPC null sec region of Curse, which puts them a single gate from the center of Catch and very close to Brave’s home, route to the war, and supply route from high sec.

Action in Catch

They have used this position to reinforce and kill structures, reinforce and take ihubs, gank the locals, and disrupt life for them behind the lines.

Catch – Dec. 13, 2020

While derided as another pin prick, Legacy Coalition is moving assets and setting jump clones to Catch in order to counter this new fire in their rear area.  This will degrade their efforts in Delve and generally make the war more effort for them to prosecute.

And, just to make things interesting, there is also a storm in Catch, a Gamma storm, which has a penalty to remote reps.  There is also a Winter Nexus event ice storm, but that has no penalties.

My Participation

I got into a few more fleets over the week than I had in the past couple.  I was lucky enough to get into the PAPI headshot fight in 1DQ1-A, so saw some actually fleet combat.  Otherwise I was mostly along for fleets out covering entosis or shooting people trying to entosis our stuff, though I may have spent some time in Catch.  But none of my ships exploded, so my losses for the war remain:

• Ares interceptor – 12
• Crusader interceptor – 5
• Rokh battleship – 5
• Atron entosis frigate – 5
• Ferox battle cruiser – 3
• Drake entosis battle cruiser – 3
• Purifier stealth bomber – 2
• Guardian logi – 2
• Malediction interceptor – 2
• Scalpel logi frigate – 2
• Raven battleship – 1
• Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
• Gnosis ratting battlecruiser – 1
• Scimitar logi – 1
• Bifrost entosis command destroyer – 1
• Cormorant destroyer – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
• Sigil entosis industrial – 1
• Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1

Other Items

CCP introduced some changes with the December patch last Tuesday, among the biggest was the change to PvE drone aggression.  Feedback… and the fact that it broke PvP drone functionality… got CCP to roll back the change.  We’ll see if they try this again once they have their code figured out.

They also un-fixed the fix that stopped people from setting their home stations in NPC stations without cloning services.  This bug was around so long that it became a feature.  The real question for me was why NPC stations don’t all have clone services at this point?

Unannounced in the patch notes, or anywhere else, was a new character generation process.  This only affects newly created accounts and there is already a forum thread complaining about it.  To me it feels like an attempt to simplify the character creation process to get people actually into the game without getting bogged down in avatar creation.  We’ll see how that plays out.

They also kicked off the holiday event, the Winter Nexus.

And this week CCP faced another foe; the launch of Cyberpunk 2077.  Given how many people are talking about this game… it shattered Blizzard’s claim that Shadowlands was the fastest selling PC game ever, moving 8 million pre-orders, including 4.7 million on PC… the PCU dipped only slightly on Sunday.

• 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

Of course, Legacy was supposed to be conducting that big move op in order to defend Catch, so that and the holiday event might have been enough to keep the numbers from tipping too far.  We’ll see how it goes next week.

Related

• INN – World War Bee: Week 23
• INN – PAPI Attacks 1DQ1-A
• INN – Fueling the War Machine: Mining
• New Eden Post – The Culture of War of Attrition (warning: unsupported assumptions)
• The Meta Show – The Initiative Goes to Catch (warning: PAPI says don’t watch this)
• IGN – How EVE Online’s Players Started a War That’s Cost $700K
• CCP – The Fury at FWST-8 Battle Report

PlanetSide Arena

Daybreak said they would be announcing a new game come Thursday morning Pacific time.  And what they announced was PlanetSide Arena.

The word “new” obviously has some sort of alternate definition, because it didn’t look all that new to me on the stream.  It looked pretty much like PlanetSide 2, tired six year old graphics and all.

But then the stream made it clear that it really was PlanetSide 2.  Just PlanetSide 2 merged with just about every common shooter mode ever… including battle royale, because of course… with seasonal battle passes and achievement progression and as many as 500 players in a match.

Meet Battle Modes

Those are all the planned modes anyway.  Season 1 will have just two modes, and I know you can guess one of them without looking:

• Massive Clash (250 vs. 250 group battle)
• Battle Royale (Solos and Teams of 3)

So those who picked “PlanetSide 2 Battle Royale” in the pool win.  I would say something about Daybreak jumping on the battle royale bandwagon, but they pretty much started it with H1Z1.  I have my doubts about whether they’ll be able to take the lead with their second go-around.  Fortnite needs to stumble to be assailable.

The stream actually addressed where in the lore PlanetSide Arena occurs, which surprised me with the idea that the game had some sort of lore beyond factions.  Anyway, it takes place several decades after PlanetSide 2 in the timeline, after the war between the three factions led to a chaos where there are no factions.  Convenient… unless you’re into the faction thing.  Then no faction for you I guess.

Of course, the upside of just reworking a game you already have is that the development time is cut down dramatically.  So if you are dying to get your hands on PlanetSide Arena you only have about a month and a half to wait.

January 29, 2019

And, of course, there are pre-orders with special bennies available now.

At least the price is discounted

Oddly, the only place to pre-order seems to be Steam.  There is no direct from Daybreak purchase available.  I guess that means we’ll see how many people end up playing it via Steam’s stats.

Also, no mention of a PlayStation 4 version as yet.

So the revenue scheme here is box sales and season passes I guess.  That is probably not going to play well against Fortnite, which Epic gives away for FREE.

Also missing from the list is any mention of the Daybreak All Access subscription.  You know, that thing that the Daybreak installed base is likely already subscribed to.

The All Access pass is what PlanetSide 2 has largely depended on, which led Daybreak to say that the game was “really struggling” back in late 2015.  Since then the newer games in the stable, H1Z1 and the late Just Survive, have avoided the All Access pass, with H1Z1 even getting its own cash shop currency.  PlanetSide Arena appears to be avoiding the All Access pass as well, which I suspect will limit any halo effect benefits for PlanetSide 2.

I gather that the target audience is people who are not already invested in Daybreak.  Or, at least the installed base is being taken for granted.  That always works out well for companies.

Anyway, this is clearly not my thing.  But it is coming from Daybreak, so its performance does have some impact on a couple of games I do care about.   We shall see where this one goes.

Does this count as PlanetSide 3 from that rumors post?  It hits on a couple of notes, but really isn’t a new game.  Close enough though?

Anyway, this is where I would be linking to other bloggers talking about the first “new” game announcement out of Daybreak since its founding, but there aren’t any yet.  I thought waiting until the next day to post would give me a couple links.  We’ll see.

VNI Fleet Timer Skirmish in Fade

Once more into space went our VNI fleet, undocking for another foray into harms ways.

VNIs undock once more

Another Astrahus timer was set to expire where we were the other night, DW-T2I in Fade.

The op had been announced well in advance so I was ready and resupplied.  I even had a new SKIN for the VNI, having had SKINs on the mind with the advent of the CCP Blaze memorial SKIN set, which I also picked up.

A fresh SKIN on the VNI

The Glacial Drift SKIN was readily available in Jita for a reasonable price, so I grabbed that for the op.

As these things go, we got ourselves together and out on the titan to wait for our ride into the fight.

Taking up a collection to buy that Erebus a SKIN

One more trip into the POS shields.  Some day… maybe even some day soon… that will no longer be a thing in New Eden.  There aren’t many roles left for the good old POS, aside from hiding titans and anchoring jump bridges.

We waited a bit, but the call to take the bridge came as the blue effect swirled about the POS.  We jumped, landing on the Astrahus in DW-T2I.

The Cyno burns bright

We were there just in time as the counter ticked down to the appointed hour.

Citadel vulnerable in 1 second

The enemy had not yet appeared as the timer rolled over and the repair cycle began, but that situation did not last for long.  Soon Pandemic Horde dropped just off the citadel with the expected Tempest Fleet.

There they are on the overview

As they had previously, they came with an Apostle force auxiliary for reps.

Apostle on grid with the Astrahus

In addition they had reinforcements from their allies Guardians of the Galaxy coalition in the form of a Cerberus fleet.

We had a bit of support of our own, which arrived as the fight kicked off.  Asher set us up to hit the Tempest fleet first and we were able to pick off some choice targets almost immediately, including a pair of Basilisks, a Vulture, a Tengu, and a Cerberus that strayed too close to us.

However, they managed to get webs on Asher long enough to slow him down and pop him, which put us off our stride.  We went to a secondary anchor, shot a few Tempests, and then had to warp off as our drones we getting shredded.  Along the way I was red boxed by the Tempest fleet, but speed and our logi support saved me.

Meanwhile, a Jackdaw fleet that had flown up from Delve joined in the fray.  Also present were some bombers from The Initiative who were fresh off their server first Guristas Sotiyo kill.  After waiting out our aggression timer on at a safe, we docked up in the Astrahus to swap fresh drones into our drone bays from cargo.  Asher meanwhile had reshipped and rejoined us, leading us back on grid to the fight.

Tempest fleet in the new warp bubble effect

For this round we stayed at the edge of lock range in an effort to avoid getting webbed again.  Our survivability depends on keeping our speed up to avoid being hit by the battleship guns.  That made our ability to engage a bit dodgy as our drones had a long way to go and the Cerberus fleet, or target for this round, hove in and out of lock range.

A Cerberus caught by our drones about to explode

A number of times we would get drones on a Cerb only to have it move out of range, though our drones would keep attacking.  During that engagement I managed to get the kill mail on one of the Cerbs.  It was pure luck, as these things tend to be in fleets over a certain size, but it did give me a third kill mark on my VNI.

Those tiny white triangles on the upper hull, just in the blue, are kill marks

We kept at it and were able to take down a string of Cerbs though, once again our drones were getting chopped up.  A smart bombing Machariel was in their midst, taking its toll.  I lost my full second flight of heavy drones and towards the end had only my two backup heavies engaged.

We were not able to do much versus the Tempest fleet at that point, and they kept on hitting the Astrahus, eventually winning the timer.  That advanced the assault on the citadel to the final round, the fight to destroy it, which initiates six days hence.

The six day count down to the final fight

At that point the main event was over.  We docked up in the citadel again to move whatever drones we had left in cargo over to our drone bays.  That meant some sentry drones for me.  The hostiles hung around a bit then started to warp off.  However, a few of them were too close to the structure model and ended up bumping it while trying to align out.  A Sabre of ours outside the Astrahus, waiting for just such an opportunity, put up a bubble to hold them and we all poured out of the citadel, launched our reaming drones, and picked off the stragglers.

The Astrahus bubbled to catch the unfortunates

That netted us a couple more Cerbs, a Loki, and a Scimitar to finish off the evening.  Then people began to  loot the field then pop wrecks to keep the enemy from picking over the remains.  A daring Ibis and a Catalyst warped in and out looting and salvaging, staying just out of our reach.

I moved back to pick up my sentry drones and waited for the trip back to our staging.

Motoring back to my drones

So the fight was a bit of a split decision.  The enemy achieved their objective and sent the citadel into its final timer.  However, the results of the battle show the ISK war coming out very much in our favor in a fight where we were, once again, out numbered.  We lost about 6.6 billion ISK while blowing up more than 13 billion ISK in hostiles.

As I hung about waiting for the run back to staging I managed to catch a screen shot with an ad running on the Astrahus that seemed amusing.

Fly to Live, Live to Fight

My ship lived to fly another day.  We shall see if the VNIs undock again for another fight.

Delve – Mining Value Down but Still Dominant

The New Eden Monthly Economic Report for November 2017 arrived yesterday so it is time to take a moment to look how things are going in Delve.

As noted in the title, mining in Delve was down some, dropping from 14.6 trillion ISK in October to 13.9 trillion ISK in November.

November 2017 – Mining Value by Region

However, as I have mentioned in the past, the mining chart is measured by the value of the ore extracted and, as we can see from the price index chart, that value has continued its slide.

November 2017 – Economic Indices

With as much of dip as that, it is quite possible that more ore was extracted in Delve last month, when compared to October, rather than less.

Still, some regions appear to be down more than others.  I wonder if something is going on in Fade, and Branch… maybe somebody hot dropping miners… because the numbers for those regions seem down much more than the decline in price might explain.

As you can see on CCP Quant’s new bar chart Branch, which was in seventh place, has fallen further down the list.

November 2017 – Mining Value by Region – Bar Graph

Likewise, Fade seems to have fallen a few places in the stack, though Deklein, where we have been having some battles, still seems to be holding onto its spot.

Jin’taan posted a wry comparison to Reddit of Delve vs. the rest of New Eden when it comes to mining.

On the bounties front it probably surprises exactly zero people that Delve remained in the lead for November.

November 2017 – NPC Bounties by Region

Bounty payouts in Delve were up a few billion, though I contributed even less than my usual hundred million or so to the number as I did not rat even once during the month.

November 2017 – NPC Bounties by Region – Bar Graph

Branch was down a bit over last month, but most other regions seemed to hold steady or were up somewhat for November.

There there is the “make non-null sec players rage” chart that shows null sec grew slightly in total percentage of bounty payouts, going from 92.1% to 92.4%, with both high and low sec declining every so slightly.

November 2017 – Bounties by Space Sec Rating

Wormhole space remained at its normal zero percent because they get paid out by NPCs for drops by their rats which totaled to about 19 trillion ISK in value.  If counted as bounties that would change the mix somewhat, though the fact that they have to ship them out of wormhole space to cash in adds to the complexity.

On the sinks and faucets chart bounties payouts were slumping slightly towards the end of November.

November 2017 – Top 8 ISK Sinks and Faucets

Even with that ever so slight dip bounties remain in the zone where CCP previously expressed the opinion that they were too high, so it remains to be seen if CCP will turn an eye towards super carrier ratting for further nerfs.

On production Delve remains a significant force and, last I heard, the region still needed to import some minerals to keep the factories running apace.

November 2017 – Production Values by Region

As we have seen in the past, production in the three regions around Jita, the trade hub for New Eden, dominates, but Delve still stands out on the bar chart.

November 2017 – Production Values by Region – Bar Graph

And, of course, when it comes to market value The Forge, home of Jita, stands out well ahead of all others.

November 2017 – Trade Value by Region

This dominance is especially visible on the bar chart where there is The Forge and then

November 2017 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph

The contrast is so striking that CCP Quant added a bar graph without The Forge just so that you could compare the other regions visually without them seeming, as my grandfather might put it, flatter than piss on a plate.

November 2017 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph, The Forge Excluded

There you can see Delve ringing in at about half the rate as Domain, home to Amarr, the Chicago of trade hubs to Jita’s New York City.  All those Goons are up to something.

Finally, the regional summary chart of key indices that gives a nice combined picture for a set of regions.

November 2017 – Regional Summary Stats

As usual I am mostly reveling in the fact that EVE Online is the kind of game where the economy is so central that CCP reports on it regularly.  Reporting on Delve just gives me a chance to go on about the importance of the economy in New Eden.  I certainly cannot claim to have influenced anything that happened in Delve.  I am pretty sure I haven’t set foot in the region for at least a month.

Anyway, you can find all these charts and more, as well as the raw data, as part of the dev blog.

And other sites have commentary on the MER:

• EN24 – Desperate Miners and Shiny Pants
• INN – Goons Win Again?

Finding My Way in Norrath Again

The change of seasons, the chill in the air, and the release of a new expansion got my thinking of Norrath.

Hey, look, a post about something other than EVE Online!

I’ve also been a bit down on WoW of late.  As I noted previously, I enjoyed the going through the initial four zones in WoW Legion, but wasn’t really into settling down to a daily quest grind.  Add in the lengths one would need to go to get the eventual flying unlock achievement and I set off in other directions.  I was toddling along doing pet battles and crafting and a bit of transmog hunting when the last update broke the PetBattle Teams addon, which I find essential for managing a stable of over 400 battle pets.  And then they broke the ability to mail stuff to my alts and I was done.  It was like they picked two things they knew would drive me away, so I let my account lapse there.

Meanwhile, the usual Norrath nostalgia season was upon us and I was interested in the Kunark Ascending expansion, especially with its level 100 character boost.

Of course, I already had a character boosted up to level 95 from the free boost offer Daybreak had back in September, so I got myself subscribed and logged in and started trying to figure out where to go and what to do.

I have mentioned before that for MMOs that I have played there tends to be a dividing line which my brain flags as old stuff/new stuff.   While it is often a division based on time, it is also generally a division based on my knowledge of the game and what I am familiar with.  In World of Warcraft everything after Wrath of the Lich King is the “new stuff.”  I know Northrend and before very well, while I have never been as well… integrated I guess… with Cataclysm and after.

In EverQuest the line is somewhere between Ruins of Kunark and Planes of Power.  In Rift the new stuff starts with Storm Legion.  And in EverQuest II the new stuff starts with the Kingdom of Sky expansion, which takes the game all the way back to early 2006.  I never really got into that expansion.

That is a big knowledge gap, spanning a decade and all.

Now, the situation isn’t completely black and white.  I came back for Echoes of Faydwer ,have messed around in the Frostfang Sea, and have managed to play at least two characters into the Rise of Kunark expansion.  But that still leaves me in November 2007 as far as EQII expansions go, or about nine and nine years expansion behind the curve.  That leaves a lot of “new stuff.”

So I got my level 95 boosted berserker Sigward out and looked at the current map of Norrath.

Where should I go today?

For whatever reason, when I took the level boost I went out to Cobalt Scar, so that is where Sigward was when I got back to him.  Then I had to figure out what mobs I could take on.  This is more confusing that it should be at times, and made all the more so since my last round of play in Norrath was on the Stormhold server.  There the idea of my level 25 Shadow Knight taking on a heroic encounter required serious planning, and the encounter had to be lower level than him.

Out in Cobalt Scar the question chain immediately set me up against some high level heroic encounters, so I began to despair.  However, giving it a “what the hell” try, I found I could defeat them easily.  I ran through a bit of that, but got stuck on a quest that seemed bugged.  So I wandered back New Halas where Frostfall, the winter holiday event was starting.  I started the quest for a new holiday tree for my home which sent me off to slay things in the Eidolon Jungle and the Obol Plains, zones that aren’t even on the map.

It turns out you have to go to Feerrott and find a special portal to get into the first, and then another portal from there to get to the second.  There I found my items and fought the usual array of interesting creatures… and actually finished up an old Lore and Legend and an old language quest along the way.

Right in the eye!

There I was somewhat emboldened with my ability to slay heroic encounters, stumbling into an instance where I was able to clear a whole range of them, including several named encounters.

Sigwerd versus a named 96 heroic

Further on into the Frostfell stuff my assessment of my own abilities were further inflated as I took down some serious mobs as part of the even.

Just a 4 group epic raid mob, no big deal

I’m pretty sure I had some sort of Frostfell buff on me for that, but it is hard to tell as the buffs and effects window in EQII gets pretty full pretty fast.

After getting some of the festivities under my belt, I was digging through my in-game mail and found the message that came with the level 95 boost which directed me towards yet another zone, the Tranquil Sea.

When I got there I found mobs that were a level or two above me, but not heroic encounters, so I figured they would be no big deal.  And then they totally kicked my ass.  The time to kill went up dramatically compared to the same level heroic encounters in Cobalt Scar and if I got a couple of them on me I was done for.

Well that was a fine move.

And then I remembered mercenaries and that I had a healer I could summon to follow Sigwerd around.  So I summoned him and things went much better.  In fact, things probably got a bit too easy then, as I found I could just pull mobs back onto Ben Nevis (his name) and he would kill them in a couple of blows.  That is a powerful merc.

My problem is probably gear related.  But, having jumped up 20 levels, I have no real feel for whether the gear they gave me with the boost is good or not or what stats are important or what I should look for when replacing them.

Do I swap for that sword or not?

In the picture above, the quest reward sword has better DPS, but I am not sure how to weigh some of the other stats.  I think I should take it, but I am not sure.  Logic would say that they should be giving me gear good enough to take on the area.  But then, logic would also seem to indicate that they should have given me gear good enough to start the zone, and I was struggling there when I was solo.

But I was at least able to progress further through the zone with the merc in tow.  As a location, it was clearly design for flight.  While I got a flying mount with my level 95 boost, I stuck with my Race to Trakanon mount from the event server.

Flying about, enjoying the view

I will say that I have not quite mastered the controls for flying yet.  Is the flying mount ALWAYS going to go where I am looking rather than where I am trying to point?  I can get around, but I am constantly at war with the thing.  It seems designed to punish people for not using the first person view.

Anyway, this has made me a bit wary of the Kunark Ascending expansion.  That comes with a level 100 boost, but there was a strong thread of opinion in the forums when I last looked that the gear you get with the upgrade is NOT for Kunark Ascending, but rather to allow you to do Terrors of Thalumbra content that will gear you up enough to go do the new content.

That seems like an odd approach to take… here is some gear but it isn’t good enough for the content you just purchased.  Then again, I went where the game told me and found my level 95 gear wasn’t up to snuff… or so it seems.  I could just be bad.  Of clueless.  Even the EQ2 Wire expansion FAQ isn’t dumbed down enough for me to figure things out.

Meanwhile, I have decided to try and loosen up my grip on all that Station Cash… erm, Daybreak Cash… I have been hoarding since back in the day.  I might buy a couple more level 95 boosts if I can figure out which characters I ought to raise up.  I did buy a three pack of Legends of Norrath loot cards, which got me another painting for the wall and a pet that I sold for more cash than I have ever had in Norrath.

Now I am set for plat

Well, post-cataclysm Norrath in any case.  Platinum inflation in EverQuest led to some silly things and I once found I was immobile because I forgot to deposit my cash when I left the Bazaar.

I even opened up the old Qeynos Credence Revival guild hall.  I wanted to get access to the guild gatherer for doing some trade skill stuff.  Back in the day 1.7 plat and 135K status rent a week seemed like a lot.  Now the plat is negligible and I can earn that much status easily enough, though there is more than 2 million status in the guild escrow and another 2 million on Sigwerd alone.

So there I am, back in Norrath again.

Claim Your Daily Yoiul Gifts in EVE Online!

Starting today, December 14, the Yoiul Festival is live in EVE Online. to celebrate the season and the coming of YC119. (Also noted on the Updates page)

There will be a new gift to redeem in game every day for twelve days.  Today’s gift, the first on the list, is a set of four frigate SKINs, one for each of the empires, covering the Amarr Punisher, the Caldri Kestrel, the Gallente Incursus, and the Minmatar Rifter.

Yoiul Festival SKINs

I was happy with that, but I am a fan of SKINs.

A key part of this is that you must log in every day to claim that day’s gift.  As noted by CCP:

Each gift will be present for 24 hours, until 23:59:59 UTC, when it will be replaced by the next gift. Be sure to log in and claim your gifts from your redeeming system to avoid missing out!

If you don’t log in, you don’t get your gift.

Remember that the days are counted from UTC and not your local time.  Being on the west coast of the US, I was able to claim the first day’s gift at 16:00 local time on the 13th, which is when the date changes in New Eden.

Also, there have been some issues reported with redeeming gifts, to which CCP has responded.  I could not find the first one I redeemed in my inventory, but after I had logged out and back in again it appeared.