The November MER Shows Bounties Tanking and Mineral Prices Plateauing in EVE Online

CCP released the EVE Online Monthly Economic Report for November 2020 late last week, so it is time to see where the war and CCP’s nerfs are having an impact.

EVE Online nerds harder

NPC Bounties

I want to start with the biggest impact, which came with NPC bounties, long the largest ISK faucet in the game.  On November 10th CCP launched the Dynamic Bounty System and the mandatory Encounter Surveillance System changes, both aimed squarely at turning down the ISK faucet.

And how did that work out?  Direct hit maybe?  Look at the chart.

Nov 2020 – Top Sinks and Faucets Over Time

NPC bounties fell as far in November as they ever have on that chart, dipping down into the region of the Chaos Era experiments of summer 2019.  Even though the nerf only hit the last two thirds of the month, the numbers were telling when compared to October.

October 2020 vs. November 2020 faucets

You may need to click on that chart above to read the numbers, but you’ll see that NPC Bounties dropped off by 24 trillion ISK in November, allowing NPC Commodities… which is mostly wormhole income, with some Abyssal deadspace turn-ins… to jump to the top of the chart.  In fact, NPC Commodities and Incursion Payouts both jumped in November, almost as though people were looking for other channels to earn ISK.

As for where the bounties were being claimed, most of the usual suspects are in the top ten, but most took a hit.

1. Oasa – 4.10 trillion (PandaFam) 66% of October
2. Cobalt Edge – 2.17 trillion (PandaFam) 60% of October
3. Perrigen Falls – 1.99 trillion (PandaFam) 69% of October
4. Branch – 1.95 trillion (PandaFam) 46% of October
5. Fountain – 1.88 trillion (Imperium) 115% of October
6. Vale of the Silent – 1.80 trillion (mixed small groups) 71% of October
7. The Kalevala Expanse – 1.77 trillion (PandaFam) 79% of October
8. Detorid – 1.41 trillion (Legacy) 72% of October
9. Insmother – 1.34 trillion (Legacy) 65% of October
10. Tenal – 1.24 trillion (PandaFam) 70% of October

The one region that was up was Fountain, which wasn’t in the top ten in October.  I think that is where The Initiative was doing some ratting, though it might have been LowSechnaya Sholupen, which holds the constellations close to Aridia.

Overall the regional totals added up to 39.3 trillion ISK, down from 55.9 trillion ISK in October.  And, yes, those numbers do not match the ones on those bar graphs above because CCP calculates the numbers differently in different areas.  My total for regions comes from the raw data in the regionalstats.csv file that comes with the report.

Mining

Mining is still living with the nerfs from earlier that are keeping mineral prices at or near their all time high.

Nov 2020 – Economic Indices – Long Term

If you look at the short term indices chart, you can see a slight dip in November relative to the October peak.

Nov 2020 – Economic Indices

But that is mostly likely just the market prices stabilizing after the shock of the huge nerf to mining.  Minerals remain expensive and rare.

The top regions for mining remain mostly high sec.

1. The Forge – 1.37 trillion (High Sec)
2. Metropolis – 1.26 trillion (High Sec)
3. Domain – 1.22 trillion (High Sec)
4. Oasa – 1.20 trillion (PandaFam)
5. Sinq Laison – 979 billion (High Sec)
6. Lonetrek – 874 billion (High Sec)
7. Tash-Murkon – 793 billion (High Sec)
8. Derelik – 739 billion (High Sec)
9. Essence – 669 billion (High Sec)
10. The Citadel – 665 billion (High Sec)

A total of 23.7 trillion ISK in mineral value was mined in November, down from the 28.68 trillion ISK in value mined in October.  The new mining meta is to sit in high sec in a brick tanked Orca and AFK mine with drones.

Production

The top regions for production in November were:

1. The Forge – 21.59 trillion (High Sec)
2. Delve – 11.62 trillion (Imperium)
3. Lonetrek – 7.13 trillion (High Sec)
4. Sinq Laison – 5.88 trillion (High Sec)
5. The Citadel – 5.79 trillion (High Sec)
6. Domain – 4.89 trillion (High Sec)
7. Esoteria – 4.08 trillion (Legacy)
8. Tribute – 3.89 trillion (mixed small groups)
9. Oasa – 3.51 trillion (PandaFam)
10. Vale of the Silent – 2.94 trillion (mixed small groups)

Total production added up to 115 trillion ISK in value, largely concentrated in the high sec regions around Jita (The Forge, Lonetrek, and The Citadel), the main trade hub.  That is down from the 122.78 trillion ISK in production that happened in October.  Delve, focal point of the war, was down more than 6 trillion ISK, accounting for almost half the drop in monthly production in New Eden.

Trade Value

The top regions for trade value in November were:

1. The Forge – 439.5 trillion (Jita)
2. Domain – 55.46 trillion (Amarr)
3. Delve – 22.79 trillion (Imperium)
4. Sinq Laison – 20.93 trillion (Dodixie)
5. Lonetrek – 14.63 trillion (Caldari High Sec)
6. Metropolis – 10.13 trillion (Hek)
7. Heimatar – 9.70 trillion (Rens)
8. Essence – 5.07 trillion (Gallente High Sec)
9. The Citadel – 4.43 trillion (Caldari High Sec)
10. Insmother – 3.74 trillion (Legacy)

Jita remains the dominate numbers, accounting for 70% of the 629 trillion ISK in trading done in New Eden in November.  Amarr remains the strongest among the lesser hubs, holding onto its number two spot even after having the short route to Jita cut by the Triglavian invasion.  Delve was down about 2 trillion ISK in value, though the destruction numbers in the region were down considerably, so there were likely just less ships that needed to be replaced.

Destruction

Finally, the impact of the war, which was being fought for its second month in Delve.  The top ten regions for destruction were:

1. Delve – 4.50 trillion (Imperium)
2. The Forge – 2.04 trillion (High Sec)
3. The Citadel – 1.93 trillion (High Sec)
4. Lonetrek – 1.65 trillion (High Sec)
5. Sinq Laison – 1.36 trillion (High Sec)
6. Metropolis – 1.31 trillion (High Sec)
7. Oasa – 1.11 trillion (PandaFam)
8. Heimatar – 1.04 trillion (High Sec)
9. Esoteria – 1.01 trillion (Legacy)
10. Syndicate – 961 billion (NPC Null Sec)

Destruction overall was down from 45 trillion ISK in October to 40 trillion ISK in November.  The largest regional drop was in Delve, which saw 10.89 trillion ISK in destruction in October, largely due to the Keepstar fights in NPC Delve, to a mere 4.5 trillion ISK this month.  There is still clearly a war going on.  Esoteria, TEST’s home region, which has been under attack by the Imperium joined the list.  TEST’s response to that has been to declare they are abandoning the region to move into Imperium space.  That is an issue that has yet to be resolved.

And that is where things stood in November.

For December we will have to see if people adapt to the NPC bounty nerfs or if CCP’s minor tweaks to them have any impact on that ISK faucet.

The Steam Winter Sale 2020 has Begun

It is that time of year… though haven’t you bought enough video games this year already?  All the numbers indicate that spending on games has been boosted by the pandemic.  But here is a chance to add I a few more titles to your list.

With the first day of winter, at least here in the northern hemisphere, comes the start of the annual Steam Winter Sale.

Back for 2020

Between now and January 5th the usual range of discounts will be available for many games on your wishlist.  Did you just buy Cyberpunk 2077 last month at full price?  Well, it is already on discount… if you can log in… whoops, no it isn’t.  I logged in and saw it half off then the server coughed, kicked us all out and it was back to full price again.  But I bet somebody clicked on it in time.

It isn’t a real Steam sale if something isn’t broken or mis-priced… usually both.

Server down, come back later

That will settle down soon enough through.

It is also your opportunity to vote in the annual Steam awards.

I am sure I will find the time to log in and vote.  But the great weariness of 2020 has actually made it less likely for me to buy or try something new.  We shall see.

Some Better Luck with Operation Permafrost

Thanks to a tip in the comments from the last post about the event I went looking at the December patch notes… patch notes get updated for follow on fixes… and I did see that CCP ended up doing some tweaks for the Operation Permafrost event, so I thought I might give it another shot.

It is what we have now

Among the fixes listed were missing ore and NPCs podding players.  I was having problems with the former and am glad to have not had to experience the latter.  That can be a nasty surprise.

I was able to get out the Procurer again and actually found some ore beyond the west gate that I was able to harvest.

Procurer mining like it should

I don’t know if the asteroids still only respawn at downtime or not however, since the site I entered was empty of other players.  So the asteroids I found there might have been respawns, but it is possible that the rush to mine was done already.

Here I was finally able to discern deeper differences between this and the Crimson Harvest event.  Again, while similar to a certain degree, CCP sought to change things up some.  During the Crimson Harvest event the tasks from The Agency seemed to be pretty much infinitely redoable.  You mined so many units of the event ore, get the points, then do it again.  Kill so many NPCs, collect the points, do it again.

You can view that as dull or serene depending on how you look at it I suppose, but I gather CCP felt it was more towards the former.  So for the mining side of things it did start off with a series of “mine X amount of ore” followed by “mine X+Y amount of ore.”  But then it started in with some other tasks, like reprocessing a set amount of ore.  I flew back to a station to do that.

Then there was more mining to be done, then a requirement to process a given amount of ore using the structures in the West pocket, which I didn’t know you could do until that came up.

Using the structure

At that point I had to go back to the station where I had stashed a load of the ore to bring back in order to meet the goals for that task.

On the way back I decided to figure out the three tasks asking you to examine each of the three gates.

There is no “examine: option

I had previously used them and looked at the info display for each gate, but that didn’t seem to do anything.  Google didn’t help either, though I did find one guy’s video about the event where he too couldn’t figure out what to do.  Fortunately, in the comments, somebody said to use the “look” command on the gates from the overview.  Doing that got Aura to pop up and explain each gate in turn and let you claim the claim the rewards for the tasks… which were worth one point each.  This is why I wasn’t in a hurry to figure it out I guess.

Aura explains it all

The words about the gas cloud harvester would come into focus shortly.  Once I was done with the next ore refining and harvesting assignments the tasks moved on to gathering Hiemal Tricarboxyl Vapor.  Gas.

More than a dozen years into EVE Online and I had not once harvested gas.  Still, how hard could it be?

Something in the back of my brain knew that the Venture was the choice for gas harvesting.  I had to go get the skill and train it up on my alt, but I had some free skill points hanging about, so I popped that up to level IV right away.

Then there was fitting the Venture.  Being a mining frigate it is small and not very tough.  I recalled Johnny Splunk telling tales of avoiding NPCs while harvesting gas in by speed tanking them.  Signature size also plays into that, so I decided to go that route.

I toughened up the Venture against thermal and kinetic damage to give myself a bit of buffer, fit two gas harvesters to collect the vapor, fit a rig to give me a little more capacitor space, then strapped an oversize prop mod in the form of a 10MN afterburner, something meant for a cruiser hull, onto the ship.  That prop mod would let me go 2km/sec but keep my signature smaller than a 5MN microwarp drive would.  And it all fit.

I headed back out for the site, went through the West gate, and started up the gas harvesters.  I also set myself to orbit the gas cloud at 1km, since the gas harvesters only had a 1,500m range, and lit the afterburner.

150km out from my warp in I realized that the gas cloud was effectively zero distance from anywhere on grid, so set myself to orbit one of the structures at that range, trucking along at 2km a second.

Venture running along

That kept me far away from the Mordu’s Legion NPCs that were spawning.  They would try to lock me up and I could see them firing missiles… you can see some missiles in that screen shot above… but nothing seemed able to touch me.

Blazing away at me with missiles to no effect

I seemed pretty safe.  The harvesting, however, was taking some time.  Each cycle only harvested two units per collector, and I had two tasks set for me, one to harvest 350 units and one to harvest 400 units.  So I left myself in my big orbit slowing gathering up gas.

I also had along a pair of Hornet II drones to take care of anything that might stray into range.   I think they got maybe one frigate.  Otherwise they just flew along with me.

Hornet drones just following along

With nothing happened I was lulled into a false sense of security.  I seemed to be pretty much invincible in my orbit.  So I walked away from the computer as the numbers slowly counted up.

I came back to find myself still in orbit, however I was now just in my pod.  The wreck of my Venture say in space not too far behind me.

Just a wreck now

I had gotten pretty far along however, almost half way to 400 units harvested.  I didn’t look at the kill mail, thinking it was likely just a bad luck NPC spawn or maybe one of them had managed to cut me off somehow.

So I went on back to Amarr and fit out another Venture, the same as before.  Then I went back and, thinking maybe I hadn’t gone far enough out in my orbit, I aimed away from the warp in and put a good 300km between me and the nearest NPC, harvesting as I went, and started an even bigger orbit.

Venture venturing out

Once set I tabbed out to look at something else, then tabbed back only to find myself dead again.  Well, clearly I was doing something wrong.  So I grabbed another Venture in Amarr, but didn’t waste time fitting much to it.  Gas harvesters and the prop mod was all I brought with me this time.  I went for an even larger orbit.  In addition, some other people had showed up, so I figured they might give me some cover.

Look at them in the distance

I hung in for a bit, enough to finish the harvesting tasks and get another, when suddenly I was taking damage.  I turned to warp out to one of the local citadels, shutting down the AB, but before I was aligned I was in my capsule yet again.

I saw the damage flash by on screen, but had to go check the logs to be sure about what I had seen.

[ 2018.12.21 19:51:31 ] (mining) You mined 2 units of Hiemal Tricarboxyl Vapor
[ 2018.12.21 19:51:31 ] (mining) You mined 2 units of Hiemal Tricarboxyl Vapor
[ 2018.12.21 19:51:45 ] (combat) 355 from Atmospheric Instabilities - Hits
[ 2018.12.21 19:51:50 ] (combat) 253 from Atmospheric Instabilities - Hits
[ 2018.12.21 19:51:55 ] (combat) 123 from Atmospheric Instabilities - Hits

I went and looked more closely at the kill mail and saw that I had been done in by an “invisible cloud.”  According to zKillboard, invisible clouds are doing in lots of ventures and destroyers.

So I now I knew that the site hits you with damage every so often, enough to blot out my ship in ten seconds from the first hit.  Well that wasn’t going to work out with the Venture.

I hadn’t notice this with the Procurer since it was getting hit by NPCs pretty constantly and is pretty tanky.  But I would have to be quick, aligned out, and, more unlikely, paying attention to the screen to warp off to safety before I was hit.

Meanwhile, I had another task for 350 units of vapor and a new task asking me to refine a bunch of vapor at the structure.  And, of course, I had lot both my ship and all the gas I had harvested.  I was starting to tire of the whole routine again.

But I can see how the pattern of the event changed when compared to the rather more simple Crimson Harvest event of earlier this year.  CCP decided they wanted to go with a more directed experience, setting a selection of different tasks before players to get them doing various things.  I suppose this has some merit.  I did learn a bit about gas harvesting after more than a dozen years playing.  But the whole random invisible cloud attacks on grid put me off the whole thing.  And unlike some events given through The Agency, the tasks do not appear to reset.  I’m still on the hook for harvesting and refining more gas, which isn’t worth the price in Ventures to my mind.

I did manage to get through the second set of rewards and on my way to the third, sitting at 269 points into the event.  And there is still more than a week to go.  Maybe I’ll get out and blow up some Mordu’s Legion ships with medium sized weapons… another rather specific task… to round out the event.  Or maybe I’ll learn to hack.  That is another thing I’ve managed to skip so far in the game.

Reviewing My 2017 Predictions

As the end of the year looms, the arbitrary line in time where we declare things to renew, it is time once again for one of the default end of year posts in which I seem to enjoy indulging.  So here is the 2017 version of prediction reviews.

For past versions of this, both predictions and results, you can consult these links:

• 2008 – Predictions (silly, mostly wrong)
• 2009 – Predictions (mostly silly, mostly wrong)
• 2010 – Predictions (lots of bullet points, mostly wrong)
• 2011 – Demands (mostly unmet)
• 2012 – Questions (mostly unanswered)
• 2013 – Goals (mostly unfulfilled)
• 2014 – Predictions (serious, mostly wrong again)
• 2015 – Predictions (serious, mostly wrong as usual)
• 2016 – Predictions (serious-ish, mostly wrong)

Way back during the waning hours of 2016 I scrambled to put together what seemed at the time to be sage and well considered thoughts as to what 2017 might bring.  I let those ideas loose and have now returned to the scene of the crime to see how they did out there in the harsh light of reality.

So what the hell did I think was going to happen in 2017?  And what was I on when I was thinking these things?

1 – Long in the Legion – Blizzard is going to use their ongoing content additions to WoW Legion as an excuse to not announce a new World of Warcraft expansion in 2017.  BlizzCon will come and go without a word about a new box and people will predict that it means the death of the game.

Well, no.  At BlizzCon they announced the Battle for Azeroth expansion with a cinematic and everything.  So there we are, the continue to conform to the “about every other year” pattern they had previously established.  0 points.

2 – Roll Credits – A second Warcraft film will be announced… for the Chinese market.  There will be no plans for a theatrical release in the West.  The announced plan will have it arriving as a dubbed straight-to-video option on the market some time in 2018.

Well, no.  No sequel has been announced in any form, China-only or otherwise.  Duncan Jones has been talking to people who ask and telling them what he would LIKE to do, but that is just so much chin music.  CCP has been talking about an EVE Online TV show as well and that doesn’t seem likely at this point either.  0 points.

3 – Really Big Storm – Blizzard is going to make radical changes to Heroes of the Storm in 2017 in an attempt to get it at least somewhere in the same market as DOTA 2 and LoL.  Different modes, different maps, and better stats will be featured, the latter accompanied by changes that will make individual contributions stand out much more.  So rather than talking about a new WoW expansion, Blizzard will be talking about this.

Well, sort of.  Blizzard came out of the gate in 2017 with that as a stated intent.  Then they made some small changes in the very conservative way Blizz can be at times, and more changes were mentioned at BlizzCon for 2018, which went live already, but there hasn’t been anything I would call radical and the game remains the also-ran in the MOBA category.  Still, better an also-ran than being shut down altogether.  4 points because some changes were made!  Twice!

4 – CEO of the Kill – I am going to re-roll last year’s prediction and say that Daybreak is going to get a new president… a real new president, not the current Columbus Nova overseer… with actual game industry experience; console or mobile experience, take your pick.

Well, no.  I mean, I guess there might have been.  But hell, Wikipedia still says that Russell Shanks is CEO, and we’re pretty sure he was replaced by Ji Ham in October of 2016, so it doesn’t seem like anybody is paying that close attention to the whole thing.  Anyway, as far as I can tell there has been no change.  0 points.

5 – More Than Just a Title – Daybreak also has a lot of positions open on its home page, which seems to indicate that they have some new project plans under way.  We will hear about the first of those projects in 2017, and the biggest shock will be lack of support for the PC platform.  In a world where Daybreak’s sweetest paying title is probably DC Universe Online on the PS4 and where Nintendo is cranking out hit after hit on mobile (or at least licensing to companies making hits for them), Windows will seem like yesterday’s market.

Well, no.  Daybreak still has a lot of positions open and there have been a few rumors very much on the down low, but publicly we’ve heard diddly divided by squat.  0 points.

6 – Milestone Really – Yesterday’s market will get smaller at Daybreak as well as they close down Landmark and the aptly named H1Z1: Just Survive.

Half right.  Landmark went down like an overused sexual metaphor back in February.  But the game now known as Just Survive has lived up to its name, surviving another year.  There is even talk of work done on it.  We shall see.  5 points.

7 – Trash Cash – The change with H1Z1: King of the Kill getting its own currency was just the start of death of Daybreak Cash good across all games.  The real money currency market at Daybreak will continue to fragment, with DCUO and PlanetSide 2 getting their own currency.  Only EverQuest, EverQuest II, and Landmark will keep Daybreak cash.  As with King of the Kill, there will be an open period where you can transfer your Daybreak cash to one of the new currencies.

Well, no.  No more new currencies and things have been awfully quiet on the current Daybreak Cash front.  0 points.

8 – My Card – When the currency revamp is complete, Daybreak will launch new retail game cards for some, but not all, of the currencies.  Daybreak cash won’t get cards.

Well, no.  No new currencies and no new cards.  I was really kind of fixated on this a year back, wasn’t I?  0 points.

9 – Point Break – At Standing Stone Games, the statement about nothing changing will last for a bit, and then changes will come.  Among those will be changing Turbine Points to have new, game specific names, since you couldn’t transfer them between LOTRO and DDO in any case.

Those new currencies for SSG titles will be part of Daybreak’s currency revamp and you will be able to buy into the new currencies with Daybreak cash for a limited time.

Well, no.  Fixated is the word.  0 points.

10 – And Access for All – LOTRO and DDO will be on Daybreak All Access before the end of the year.

Well, no.  I also wanted to make something out of this SSG/Daybreak partnership, probably so it would make sense.  Daybreak is there in the LOTRO EULA and all.  0 points.

11 – Hardcore Death – NCsoft will announce the end of WildStar by the end of 2017.  Another re-roll from last year.  Yes, I know you love it, but look at the numbers the NCsoft financial statements.

Well, no.  What happened to you NCsoft?   You used to be so reliably hard hearted.  The way you’re acting now its like your distracted by something else… like mobile games maybe?  Anyway, 0 points.

12 – Cloud Imperium Crisis – Push will come to shove at the house of Star Citizen in 2017… as in the need to shove something out the door that they can sell, both to generate revenue and to establish some credibility that they can ship something.  Star Marine will end up as a stand-alone purchasable product by the end of the year.  You won’t need to buy it if you’re already invested, but it will only be available after its “launch” a la carte.

Well, no.  Cloud Imperium doesn’t have anything far enough along to sell to the general public, so it continues on with its “milk the invested” strategy, now featuring claims for virtual real estate.  It’s almost enough for some sort of P.T. Barnum award at this point.  0 points.

13 – Hello World – Hello Games will continue to quietly grind out updates for No Man’s Sky, eventually turning it into a decent single player space sim/RPG.  Game sites will re-review it and give it a positive nod.  Multiplayer however will remain a lie that will haunt the game and its developer.

Sort of.  Hello Games has been quietly grinding out updates and there are new play modes and some work done towards what they call ” synchronous co-op” and what you and I would actually call “playing with other people,” but it is still a lonely universe.  Nobody of note has bothered to re-review it, but it does get a bit of nice press now and again.  5 points.

14 – Future Gates – CCP will wait until FanFest where they will finally announce the next step in their road map forward.  The announcement will be new space.  It will be available only through one-way gates that will only allow frigate sized ships to pass and once you’re on the far side you’re stuck there.  No death clones back even.  Return will depend upon completion of a giant, dozen-keepstar level of effort project has been completed by your corp/alliance/coalition.  Said gates will not allow capital ships to pass, but you can always bring blueprints.

Well, no.  We got moon busting instead.  Maybe, some day.  0 points.

15 – PCME? PCU! – The lasting effect of the Ascension expansion will settle down to a PCU count of about 3- 5K addition players online at any given time over the pre-expansion numbers.  For a game that runs on one server that handles time zones around the globe, that adds up to a lot of additional people, but it still isn’t the heyday of 2013 and the “EVE is dying” chorus will continue sing its near constant refrain.

Maybe.  Note to self: When you make predictions like this you need to specify in the post exactly how the measurement will be done.  Maybe I had a plan a year back, but I forget.

Anyway, going to EVE Offline and looking at the twelve months before the Ascension expansion, the PCU average was ~32K.  The average PCU for 2017, the time span for the prediction, looks to be 35K.  That seems to just fit into the 3-5K range I predicted.  I’m going to give myself 10 points and move on quickly before anybody has time to contradict me.  Sorry, too late, I can’t hear you, la la la la la la la…

16 – Switcharoo – The Nintendo Switch will hit store shelves come the Fall, but the big deal for this “is it a bit handheld or a small console?” unit will be the announcement that versions of Pokemon Sun & Moon will be available for the unit, so you will finally be able to play Pokemon on your big screen TV and even stream it on Twitch or Yahoo or Facebook if you want.  But you still won’t be able to take screen shots.

Well, no.  It hit the shelves in March and despite rumors there has been been no official sign that the core Pokemon RPG franchise will ever appear on anything but the dedicated handheld Nintendo hardware, currently represented by the Nintendo 3DS and its offspring.  0 points.

17 – Let’s Hear It for the GameBoy – Following on the success of the 3DS Virtual Console versions of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, Nintendo will follow up with an ongoing series of legacy Pokemon titles, with the generation 2 titles of Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal next up.

Yes… mostly.  We got Pokemon Gold & Silver… and Pokemon Crystal was finally announced, but we won’t get it until next month.  I’m giving myself 9 points.

18 – Forsaken Avatar – Shroud of the Avatar will finally hit its launch state and announce it is live and ready for the wide world to join in.  However, in yet another hard lesson about early access, sales won’t jump.  The core audience has already bought in and new comers will be scared off by the reviews on Steam that are the outcome of the early access run.  If it even appears on the front page of Steam’s the top seller list, it won’t stay there for very long.

Well, no.  Not really.  I mean, they are pushing the game hard in every weekly update, but they haven’t convinced me it is ready for prime time.  0 points.

19 – Not Shipping – Camelot Unchained, Crowfall, Pantheon: Rinse and Repeat, and Amazon’s New World will all be no-shows on the release market for 2017.

Okay, I had to get something right, even if it was something of a gimme.  I need more predictions like this.  10 points.

20 – Back on Track – After another year of tinkering with the game, NCsoft is going to put the screws to Arena Net and a new expansion will be announced for GuildWars 2.  That will give ANet something to talk about for months. It will also kill of any Heart of Thorns purchases given past behavior.  And, sure enough, as the new expansion gets close HoT content will become free.

Mostly right.  The core was a new expansion, which was announced and shipped.  Heart of Thorns did not go free. though there was a slight discount to buy both expansions at one point.  Still, I think the expansion was the thing.  7 points.

Extra Credit Wild Ass Guess – Daybreak hires an ex-Riot person as chief exec and announces they going to make a MOBA!  Double points if it is Norrath based!

Hahaha… no.  That I had an expectation of action from Daybreak on that one that was clearly unrealistic.  Nothing new under the sun at Daybreak.

So now it is time to add up the score and… holy crap, I believe I have hit an all time low score for predictions.  That is 50 points out of a possible 200, or a 25% success rate.  I clearly need to invest in a new crystal ball!

Either than, or just admit that my predictions are mostly speculations just to give me something to write about in a market where I don’t really care very much for anything new.  Sometimes crazy predictions are enough to make things interesting.

Anyway, with that new low I have to start thinking about 2018.  What will the new year bring?

Note to self: Remember to put in more easy ones next year.

Steam Winter Sale 2017

The Steam Winter Sale is upon us again.  Having kicked off yesterday, it will run through to January 4, 2018.

Holiday Sales are Here Again

I was aware that it was here largely because I got the Paradox winter newsletter in email announcing sale prices, and they pretty consistently put stuff on sale through their direct store to match the prices on Steam.

As with last year you can vote on the Steam Awards, go through your suggestion queues to earn trading cards, and find lots of games on sale.

Naturally, I have my own gripes, though they are mostly about me.

The big sale is here and I am not really looking for a new game.  Last year I actually picked up a few titles and, more surprisingly, I actually played them.  Imagine that!  At some point I decided that there will always be another sale so there is no rush to collect games in my library that I might play some day.

Plus I am in something of a happy spot with gaming right now.  I am in the late expansion groove with WoW Legion, with a little something to do every day plus pet battles and alts to play with when I’ve done a few tasks with my main.

Likewise, in EVE Online there are a few ops a week to go on and not much logistical support needed to keep that up.

So I look at my Steam wishlist and am not burning to buy anything there.  Most of the titles on the list have been there for a year or longer at this point.  What are the odds I am suddenly going to buy GTA V this time around?

And there isn’t anything new out there that has my interest.  I mean, there are plenty of new games on Steam, but the barrier to entry is so low these days that you have to assume everything is crap until proven otherwise.  I suppose everybody is up about PlayerUnknown’s Battleground.  I am mildly interested in that… though it isn’t on sale so I can buy that any time.. but the voice in the back of my head wants to know if I really need another shooter to be bad at.  I bought Doom during a mid-year sale and, while it was an awesome, visceral experience, my badness kept it from being all it could be.

I guess I can always look at my daughter’s Steam wishlist to see if there is anything she wants.

Is there anything new in the Steaming pile I should be keeping an eye on?

Running with the Far Seas Trading Company

As I have tried to pick up the thread of an adventure in EverQuest II, I seem to have fallen in with the Far Seas Trading Company, an organization that is a bit more about crafting than adventuring.

Which isn’t to say that I mind crafting.

Crafting in EverQuest II has developed over time, eventually settling down into what it is today, something still deep but manageable.  It can actually be relaxing, something I can plug away at while listening to a podcast or an audio book.

But crafting is supposed to be more of a side task, yet even my adventures end up leading me to crafting somehow.

As noted in the previous Norrath post, I was having some trouble even finding where to pick up when it came to adventuring.  It is easy to say that EQII isn’t WoW and so maybe I shouldn’t expect to be headed straight to the current content, but even in EQII you used to be able to pick up the thread of a zone at the point where you landed.  After finding no quests in places like Eidolon Jungle and Obol Plains and having the quest chain trip over a broken quest in Cobalt Scar, I ended up in the Tranquil Sea.

Landing in the Tranquil Sea

There, once I got my mercenary out and healing me, I was able to progress as I fought my way through the various tasks.  There was enough there to even get me a level’s worth of progress.

Made it to level 96

However, the adventure quest lines, which I was getting multiple quests for at one point, eventually narrowed down to a single thread.  There was also a quest giver offering up the option to go do solo instances.  I gave that a couple of tries, but find solo instances a bit… antiseptic maybe?  I don’t know, maybe solo and dungeons and instancing is too far for me.

And then there were the Far Seas Trading Company NPCs, who seemed to have any number of tasks for me, so I went off with them.  Their tasks garner a bit of adventure experience along the way, but seem to be more focused on moving you along in the crafting sphere, so while I hit 96 in adventuring, I am already past half way into 98 when it comes to crafting.

And I haven’t binged on writs

As I said, that isn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t quite where I was planning to head, and it is a bit off from my past experience with the game, where on entry to a zone you seemed to get all sorts of options.  But that was the 2008 view of the world and a lot has changed since then.

So I am carrying on.  I have the EQ2 Maps addon for the game, so I can SEE all the quest related points of interested marked on the map.  So I know there has to be a lot more out there on the adventuring quest front, I just have to make my way to it somehow.

In the mean time, I carry on with the Far Seas Trading Company, which has earned me a pile of their tokens.  However, I can’t actually spend any of them as my standing with them as a faction is still neutral.  I suppose I will need to fix that somewhere along the line as well.