30 Weeks of World War Bee

After a couple weeks of what one might describe as malaise on the part of PAPI, they finally came back strong this past week, taking advantage once again of their overwhelming numbers.

The big news for the week was probably the M2-XFE titan breakout.  After several feints and aborted attempts, PAPI finally committed to freeing their titans and went all in on it just after downtime on the 27th.  It was a costly operation for PAPI, which sacrificed more than 2 trillion ISK in losses… an amount made up largely of 400+ destroyed dreadnoughts… as the battle report shows.

Battle Report Header

But they managed to extract ~170 of their trapped titans, losing only 6 along the way, leaving 130 or so still in M2-XFE.  That can only count as a significant morale win for PAPI as they now have that many more titans to bring to bear if the situation calls for it.  The remaining titans are estimated to belong to the following groups:

• Test Alliance Please Ignore – 47
• Pandemic Horde – 39
• Northern Coalition – 29
• Brave Collective – 9
• The Army of Mango Alliance – 8
• Evictus – 2
• Already Replaced – 2
• Eternal Requiem – 1
• Sev3rance – 1
• VENI VIDI VICI – 1
• Federation Uprising – 1
• Fraternity – 1

PC Gamer’s Steven Messner wrote an article about the M2-XFE situation and the breakout which even mentions me briefly. (Wish he’d linked to the blog and not just the image, but whatever.)

The breakout coincided with a noticeable rise in participation on the part of PAPI pilots, demonstrating the morale boost the escape has given them.

Delve Front

Delve was far and away the most active area of the war, as one might expect.  After allowing the Imperium to push back some of their gains, the resurgent PAPI began successfully defending ihubs in the region.  One of those was in the system 1-SMEB, where PAPI was able to put up cyno jammers successfully and destroy the Keepstar there without opposition.

They also began to put in a lot of effort retake ihubs in Delve that the Imperium had snatched back.  They have been keen to get ihubs in systems with Keepstars and have been especially invested in reinforcing the ihub in M2-XFE, no doubt to keep their remaining trapped titans from having to extract from under a cyno jammer in another ten days.  After failing on the 28th, managed to secure the grid and reinforce the ihub on the 29th by dropping carriers to support entosis faxes on the ihub, finally claiming it after almost an hour over overtime in the contest.

Battle for the ihub in M2-XFE

That led to another battle yesterday over the ihub, one that ground on for hours because of Fozzie Sov and the fact that the RNG put multiple nodes in the M2-XFE system, which meant that a couple hours went by before even a single node was hacked by either side.  But, after the long tidi grind, PAPI numbers won the contest and now their trapped titans need no longer fear the looming cyno jammers in the system.  Looking at the battle report, compared to some other battles in this war, the cost seemed not so bad.  I supposed when you consider a quarter trillion ISK destroyed and nearly 1,500 kill mails “not so bad” you might be a bit jaded.

That leaves the ihub balance in the region looking like this.

Delve – Jan 31, 2021

PAPI has pushed back and taken ihubs in Keepstar systems.  If they can keep up their numbers advantage it seems likely that we will lose all of those Keepstars.

Also, we now have two metaliminal storms running through Delve, both of which found their way in through the same door.  Given the breadth of null sec, ending up with two such storms in the primary theater of operations… well, if I were a more suspicious person I might think CCP was pushing the RNG just to see what would happen.  They created the feature, no doubt somebody there wants to see how it might affect the war.

Other Theaters

I am demoting Catch to the “other theaters” category, not because of a lack of action there but because it most of the focus is on Delve while Catch is now in there with Esoteria and Immensea and other PAPI backfield regions that are under attack from specific Imperium groups.

In Catch The Initiative has been setting up in U-QVWD, dropping its own structures and sieging  the Legacy Coalition structures located there.

Catch – Jan 31, 2021

Near the connection to Querious Imperium and allied forces have continued to attack ihubs in order to force Legacy to respond.  Operations in Catch have spilled over to the neighboring region of Immensea, where ihubs have started to fall as well.

Immensea – Jan 31, 2021

Meanwhile, the metaliminal storm that had been hanging around in the region took the exit to Stain and is now meandering there.

Over in Querious the dead lands in the east remain unoccupied as neither side has any interest in dropping any further ihubs there it seems.

Querious – Jan 31, 2021

The metaliminal storm that came in from Catch has now moved on into Delve, as noted above.  An incursion has also shown up in one of the eastern constellations.  We shall see if anybody can be bothered to try and fight it.

And, finally, I am going to re-run the same Estoteria map again.

Northwest Esoteria – Jan 31, 2021

The ihub ownership has not changed despit some action over structures in the region.

And up in the north, a small unaligned group operating under the name Freemen of the North has been using the war as an opportunity to assail Fraternity, which has a large number of players back in the home space ratting and mining according to the MER.

My Participation

I did not get into many of the big fights over the past week as a lot of the action was happening in EUTZ.  Downtime is at 11:00 UT, 5am my time, which pretty much guarantees I am asleep when it passes.  But that is when a lot of the action around M2 occurs.  I did get into the big siege of the M2 ihub on Friday with two characters at different times.  At the end, during the “overtime” period, I flew in some ECM burst interceptors to try and help break the locks that hackers had on the ihub.  That ended up costing me three Maledictions, so my losses for the war are now:

• Ares interceptor – 15
• Malediction interceptor – 7
• Crusader interceptor – 5
• Atron entosis frigate – 6
• Rokh battleship – 5
• Drake battle cruiser – 4
• Scimitar logi – 3
• Ferox battle cruiser – 3
• Purifier stealth bomber – 3
• Guardian logi – 2
• Scalpel logi frigate – 2
• Raven battleship – 1
• Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
• Gnosis battlecruiser – 1
• Bifrost command destroyer – 1
• Cormorant destroyer – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
• Sigil entosis industrial – 1
• Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1

Other Items

The Imperium finished issuing shares related to the war bond sales.  The UI for handling shares has been unsurprisingly described as “clunky.”  I now have my five shares.  The first dividend payment is due today.

Visible in my wallet

CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson participated in the Venture Beat’s Into the Metaverse summit, speaking about EVE Online.  He tried to jump on the GameStop frenzy by claiming that New Eden faces market manipulation as well, though he apparently couldn’t sight any examples. (pssst: the ice interdiction or Hulkageddon would have done)  He also said that EVE Online added 1.3 million players in 2020, for specific definitions of “added” no doubt.  The online user count certainly doesn’t seem to reflect much in the way of a dramatic influx of users.  But he also didn’t mention how many of them logged in once and never returned, which is the usual problem with the game.

Still, while we’re nowhere close to the record peak users of 2013, this past week did see numbers rise on Sunday at the prime time when both EUTZ and USTZ overlap.

• Day 1 – 38,838
• Week 1 – 37,034
• Week 2 – 34,799
• Week 3 – 34,692
• Week 4 – 35,583
• Week 5 – 35,479
• Week 6 – 34,974
• Week 7 – 38,299
• Week 8 – 35,650
• Week 9 – 35,075
• Week 10 – 35,812
• Week 11 – 35,165
• Week 12 – 36,671
• Week 13 – 35,618
• Week 14 – 39,681
• Week 15 – 40,359
• Week 16 – 36,642
• Week 17 – 37,695
• Week 18 – 36,632
• Week 19 – 35,816 (Saturday)
• Week 20 – 37,628 (Saturday)
• Week 21 – 34,888
• Week 22 – 33,264
• Week 23 – 33,149
• Week 24 – 32,807 (Saturday)
• Week 25 – 31,611
• Week 26 – 39,667 (Saturday)
• Week 27 – 34,989 (Saturday)
• Week 28 – 34,713
• Week 29 – 35,996
• Week 30 – 38,323

Related

• INN – World War Bee: Week 30
• INN – My Fellow PAPI Members: Post M2
• INN – Battle Report: M2- The Breakout Begins
• NEP – PAPI Rescue Operation Sees Nearly 200 Trapped Titans
• PC Gamer – EVE Online commandos pulled off a suicide mission to save 170 elite pilots
• INN – Battle Report: The Fight for SPNZ-Z
• INN – Battle Report: Flipping the NJU-QV Constellation
• NEP – M2-XFE IHUB Reinforced After 4 Hours of Fighting
• INN – Battle Report: Clash in Catch
• Reddit – Frat vs The Freemen of the North Week 4
• INN – Battle Report: PAPI Takes M2- iHub
• NEP – The Battle for M2-XFE: Infrastructure Hub Returns to PAPI Control

Get Your Camelot Unchained Refund Now

The thing that kind of separated the ongoing bullshit that comes out of Chris Roberts around Star Citizen and Camelot Unchained was that at least the latter had not gone down the rampant feature creep path.

Because, otherwise, there are a lot of similarities between the two projects… and the two personalities.  Even their previous games were failures that they blamed on their corporate overlords, but now that they run the show the projects keep spinning out into infinity and you start to feel their overlords might have had a point.  With nobody holding them to their plans they do as they please.

And then yesterday Mark Jacobs told the world in an interview over at Massively OP that his company, City State Entertainment, has been working on another game for the last half of a year. It is named Colossus or Ragnarok or something… it isn’t clear… and boy was it a surprise.

If that isn’t the ultimate in feature creep, I don’t know what is.  They now have two in development games with no ship date instead of just one.  This is not progress.

In the interview Mark says in the same sentence that the new game both has and has not slowed down Camelot Unchained, which means that it has and he is just spinning bullshit now.  He learned well from his time at EA I guess.

I thought maybe his bit of pre-Kickstart campaign self-flagellation about Warhammer Online, where he sort of took a bit of the blame on his shoulders, meant something.  But it clearly didn’t.  In looking back I had forgotten how, despite everything, he still clung to the Metacritic score the game got at launch, like he was holding out for a “Best Score for an Otherwise Failed Game” award at GDC or something.

So now Camelot Unchained is just fantasy Star Citizen in my eyes, minus the broken alpha demo content you can play.  It is put up or shut up for them both.  Until they ship something real it is all just bullshit.

The difference for me is that I am in on Star Citizen for the minimum bid, but I pledged a lot more for Camelot Unchained and I am feeling all the more the sucker for the faith I showed.

I want a refund.

City State Entertainment says on their FAQ page that they will give people refunds.  Just send an email to support@citystateentertainment.com asking for one.  You won’t get the full amount back.  They will subtract the fees the incur giving you the refund, but at least you ought to get something back.  And it is about the only message one can send that Mark won’t just hand wave away.

We shall see what I get in response.  I expect them to stonewall me on the request.   And I will certainly post updates here on how it goes.

I had already pledged never to Kickstart an MMO again, so I cannot really swear further on that.  But this certainly hasn’t done anything to soften my view on this.

Finally, I am curious that he went to Massively OP first for this announcement.  It isn’t like a gaming site with a bigger audience wouldn’t have been happy to have the scoop.  Did he expect it would slip by or that he would get a more favorable response going there?  The big sites will pick up the story anyway.

Related:

• Massively OP Interview with Mark Jacobs
• MMO Fallout
• EuroGamer

Frozen Friday Afternoon Bullet Points

There is no polar vortex going on out here on the left coast, but it is raining and chilly enough that the roses might take a rest from their otherwise year around blooming.

The previous post about Steam started as a bullet point last night, then grew into its own post.  That happens.  It was pretty much the anchor of the post too.  Now I’m left with the other items hanging about.  Might as well just post them and move on.

• A Smaller Switch

While there are no details out yet, Nintendo has said they have a revised version of the Switch they plan to launch this year.  It is supposed to be smaller so as to emphasize portability.  The hope is, no doubt, to get the remaining Nintendo 3DS/2DS users to consider it as an option.  Nintendo 3DS/2DS sales were pretty well strangled by Nintendo over the last year, undoing a sales surge in 2017.  We’ll see if the new Switch unit will hit the price, size, and durability metrics that would be required to replace the durable dual screen models.

• Wii Unplugged

This past week saw the Wii Shop channel turned off.

Memories

This closed the door on getting any digital content onto you Wii.  Yes, the Wii has been around since 2006, and is now two generations behind, with Wii U having stumbled before Nintendo hit pay dirt again with the Switch.  But our Wii is still hooked up to the TV in the family room and still gets an occasional play.

• New EVE Launcher Coming

CCP has a new launcher coming in February for EVE Online.  It will support new features, like “launch groups,” which will allow you to log on all your associated alts for specific tasks.  It will also make tasks like saving logins a little more obvious.  We’ll see if it remembers them, a chronic issue with the current launcher.

The 2019 launcher

Looking at the design though, the primary goal seems to have been better announcement placement.  Probably not a bad idea.

• Esports Trying Too Hard

There was an article up in the games section at Venture Beat about how the top ten mobile esports players had roped in $8 million in prizes in 2018.  And seven out of those ten were women.

Infographic from that post

At least that was what the headline said.  Most of the article was yet another attempt to prove that esports was a legitimate competitive arena by comparing esports to various professional sports.

I was actually interested in the topic in the headline, but that was barely covered.  Of course, it is hard to blame Venture Beat, since the press release they were working from… and which they pretty much regurgitated word for word, so maybe they get some blame… was just as scant when it came to details.  If you have to spend that much copy establishing that esports are a thing, you don’t sound convincing.

• Esports Denied

Of course, there might be a reason to feel defensive.  There was a forum to discuss bringing esports to the Olympics in some sort of exhibition capacity that fell through once the International Olympic Committee saw just how violent the most popular esports were.  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

But then the president of the German Olympic Federation Alfons Hörmann said that esports do not exist and that people should stop using the term because esports have nothing to do with sports.  He seemed quite determined that esports should never be a part of the Olympics in any way.

While I’m not in league with Herr Hörmann, I do find the pushing of the parallels between competitive professional video game leagues and sports to reach the level of the absurd at times.  Again, the burning desire to be seen as a legitimate competitive event seems to get the best of those promoting esports.

Taking a Nibble out of Steam

The big news in early December was that Epic Games was going to create their own online digital games storefront to compete with Steam.

Steam is big.  Big enough that no competitor is going to show up and hit them with a single knock-out blow.  EA couldn’t do it.  GoG certainly couldn’t manage it.  Amazon might have a shot via Twitch some day.  There is Discord gamely trying.  The Microsoft store persists out there, if you want the non-Java Minecraft of the remastered version of Age of Empires.  And recently Apple has been talking about a Netflix-like “games as a service” service.

And, despite its dominance, Steam is not unassailable.  Steam is vulnerable on a few fronts where an upstart could steal part of their pie.  There are viable markets to be invaded in the Steam portfolio.

Because who wants to be Steam anyway?  Is somebody else itching to be the top purveyor of Hentai themed Minesweeper knock-offs?  Let Valve remain king of their garbage heap.

Still, Steam was clearly their target.

Back when the Epic Store was announced, their big play was aimed at the development side of the equation, where Epic was planning to take only 12% of the sales price… and waive the fee for their Unreal engine… compared to Steam’s 30% cut.

Look how much more Steam takes

This prompted some questions.

This silliest was asking if Steam “deserves” a 30% cut.

As Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”  What made this especially silly was that this came from the developers, who honestly ought to know better.  That is the same group that howled over every possible barrier to entry that Valve set up for Steam, because being on Steam was their only chance at success.  Well, 30% was the cut when they were on the outside desperate to get in, but now that they’re in that cut is too much.  It is as if people just complain about everything… which they do. (I also feel like pointing out the cut that studios got back in the brick and mortar retail days.)

Still on the silly side of things were people wondering if prices might be lower on the Epic Store given the smaller cut Epic planned to take.

As if.  I bet the devs complaining about Steam’s cut would argue vehemently against this.

There is a stubborn ignorance out there that still assumes that cost and pricing are somehow linked.  The two are not, save for cost represents the floor above which most companies would like their pricing to remain.  But a year back we had a long discussion about how much it costs to make video games, at least top tier AAA games.  So one might argue that video games is an industry where that floor isn’t even part of the equation.

Pricing is based on what the market will bear and what your competitors are charging.  We pretty much know the price of any big name game coming from EA or Activision before they announce it.  It is going to be $59.99.  Do all those games cost exactly the same to make?  Or is there just an industry price beyond which studios believe they cannot stray lest it have an impact on sales?  I think you know the answer.

More on point were end users in touch with reality asking why they should care about the studio’s cut if prices remained the same.  If you’re already invested in Steam and have a big library there, what would Epic’s store offer besides the inconvenience of another login to manage?

Well, we got the answer to that.  Exclusives!

It is the console wars all over, writ small.  How do you get somebody on to your platform?  Offer something that the competitor doesn’t have.  Epic already had Fortnite, so that was a given.  But they needed something else.  They needed titles that Steam wouldn’t have.

When they managed to snag The Division 2 back in early January, that was news.  That gave Epic a big title that Steam would be denied, though UbiSoft would still be selling it directly as well.

This past week though fewmets hit the windmill when it was announced that publisher Deep Silver would be selling Metro Exodus on Epic’s store.  That catch here was that Metro Exodus had already been available for pre-order on Steam.  That availability was turned off with the news.

Note from Steam – When You’re Number One You Never Name the Competition

While Deep Silver said they would honor pre-orders, this got people to howl, and all the more so because the price on the Epic Store was $10 less. (You might be tempted to claim this as evidence that there will be a benefit to consumers on the pricing front, but I’d as soon bet that Epic offered additional incentives to get Deep Silver on board and at a lower price.)

That is how you get the market to take you seriously.  So seriously though that people were talking boycotts and such and Deep Silver eventually had to clarify that Metro Exodus would be available on other platforms come February of 2020.  At least you know it will be cheaper by then I guess.

This sort of thing isn’t going to turn the Epic Store into a full fledged Steam competitor.  But I don’t think they want that.  This will make Steam take them seriously though, as it takes money straight out of Valve’s pocket.  Metro Exodus was going to be worth more to Valve than a few thousand more indie titles cluttering its store front.  And given the persistent rumor that the only reason Epic has a storefront is because their parent company, Tencent, is to hit back at Valve for going into the China market with Perfect World Entertainment rather than them, and it seems to make a bit more sense.

Anyway, I don’t think Steam is going anywhere.  Valve is too entrenched to be moved quickly.  Epic will be another minor player, taking a bit of the riches from Steam.  There is a temptation to compare this to what is happening with video streaming services these days, where Netflix has lost its grip as every major player has decided to open up their own service.  I suspect that will shake itself out on its own when people vote with their wallets and a bunch of those services find they were doing better just licensing to Netflix or Hulu.  But on the video game front it is different, as there is no subscription to pay… at least until Apple shows up… just some logins and front ends to manage.

Some players are always going to be big enough to roll their own.  EA’s Origin, for example, is less the Nordstom storefront they promised and just them having their own online store so they don’t have to share with a competitor.  You don’t even need it for all of their games.

Likewise Blizzard has their launcher-and-store combo, which Activision, lacking their own, has decided to use as well.

Others, like UbiSoft or Paradox, play both sides of the game, listing on other storefronts while maintaining their own as well.

And Steam abides.

Others on this topic:

• Me vs Myself and I
• Contains Moderate Peril
• Tales of the Aggronaut

Falling into Battle for Azeroth Mania

Look at all those people clogging up Blizzard’s payment system because they HAVE TO HAVE their pre-order today! Sheep!

-Me, Tuesday Afternoon

Okay, I’ve unlocked my Highmountain Tauren allied race and raise my digital deluxe edition pet to 25.

-Also Me, That Same Evening

It isn’t like I don’t have enough things on my “To do” list in Azeroth.  But at some point on Tuesday evening I said, “What the hell!” and joined in the frenzy and pre-ordered Battle for Azeroth.

Battle for Azeroth

They say all online purchasing decisions made after 8pm are a mistake, but I did this at 7:30pm, so I’m in the clear I guess. *cough*

Of course, Blizzard wasn’t making things easy.  They dropped a patch earlier in the day to support the pre-order update and it was having… issues.  Issues like not showing any of your characters.

Breath into the paper bag and login again…

That seemed to be a random error.  You could log out and back in again and you might get your characters.  And if you did get them, then foolishly logged out… never log out on a night where there are login issues… you might not get them the next time you tried.

Anyway, I did get in and found that you could order the expansion from within the game.  I’m not sure if, by that point, it was a better option than the normal Blizzard store, but it worked.  I was set.

Then I swapped to my level 110 Horde character… because for my first time ever in WoW I have a max level Horde character… so I could work on unlocking the Highmountain Tauren.  That was the one of the current four allied races that interested me.  And it is a good thing that was the one, because I still have some work to do on the other three.  Part of my “To do” list is to finish up Argus.

So I got the quest pop for allied races which brought me to Orgrimmar where there is a new embassy building for this sort of thing.  It was, naturally enough, kind of a crowded place.  There you get to pick which allied race to pursue.  I only had the one option.

Tauren… you can have Highmountain Tauren

The game warns you to choose carefully as you can only have one allied race quest chain running at a time.  But the Highmountain quest chain… that is where you go to do it… only takes about 30 minutes.  After that you get a portal back to Orgrimmar where you turn in the last quest, get the achievement for unlocking that race, and are cleared to make one.

So I logged out and went to character creation.

Creating a Highmountain Tauren Warrior

I wasn’t sure what to go with, but warrior seemed like a viable option.  I already have a Horde druid and hunter.  And so I have a new character.  He started at level 20, which he needed to use the special mount that comes with each allied race.

The Highmountain mount is moose-like, which seems a little odd when you see a Tauren with moose antlers riding what seems to be a moose as well.  It is a bit like he is riding his second cousin or something.

Moose on moose action outside Orgrimmar

And now I have another level 20 character knocking about.  I am not sure when I will find the time, if ever, to level him up.

Of course, if I really wanted to, I could use the level 110 boost that came with the expansion.  I have no idea what else I would use it on.  But I think I will let that sit for a while before I use it.

Would EA Be Better if Microsoft Owned Them?

I saw a news item over at Game Informer earlier this week about a rumor that Microsoft might possibly maybe be eyeing Electronic Arts as an acquisition target.

I am no huge fan of Microsoft.  Leaving aside past bad corporate  behavior, operating system hegemony, and the “not bloat is ever enough” aspect of Microsoft Office, which was perfected at some point in the mid 1990s, when Word 5.1a would fit on a single 1.44mb floppy dick, but which keeps getting yearly upgrades because it is a cash cow only second to Windows itself and they have to have something to sell, their sense of how things should be done has always felt off.

There was a classic video from a decade back about how Microsoft would have designed the original iPod packaging, which is hilarious in its plausibility, taking cues from actual Microsoft packaging and pushing the idea just a little bit further, that illustrates some of that.

But I never really developed any sort of hate for Microsoft, even when I was working on products for the Macintosh.  My attitude has generally been more one of exasperation in a “I see what you were trying to achieve here, but why this?” sort of way.

I don’t have any stock images I threw together to indicate how I feel about Microsoft, no dripping blood, or satanic symbols, or Latin phrases on their logo to indicate my displeasure with them.

This is not the same for Electronic Arts.

Fun created here… on an Orca graveyard!

Which, of course, makes me wonder if Microsoft buying EA would necessarily be a bad thing.

They haven’t done horrible things to Minecraft since they made Notch a very rich man by buying it from him.  They also seem to be embracing a bit of the nostalgia thing with Age of Empires, even if they have locked me out of it for now.

Does not work on my device!

At least they might consolidate Origin with the Microsoft Windows Store.

Then again, Microsoft games always feel very much driven by the whole XBox side of the house.  Would that disrupt EA’s trajectory or would Microsoft leave well enough alone?  And would one or the other be preferable?  Microsoft seems to be better with their studios than EA, which has a penchant for closing them down.

And then I wonder about what more market consolidation means in a world where there are already only a few players in the market that can afford to make AAA level video games.

Overall my gut is that Microsoft is more likely to be concerned about end users that EA seems to be.  But I am not sure how much of an endorsement that really is.  How far does “better than EA” really get you?  It seems like a low bar to me.

Anyway, in the end, it will be shareholder value that dictates whether this happens as opposed to whatever gamers might think.

BB79 Longevity Has Its Own Rewards

We are opening up a new month with a new Blog Banter, the 79th in the series.  This month’s topic is:

Should CCP put more effort into rewards for loyal customers? The mystery code from the collector’s edition hasn’t seen much use and whilst veteran rewards have been mentioned by CCP several times at Fanfests, we have seen nothing. Wasn’t there talk of a special station only 10-year vets could dock in at one point?

Is this lack of gratitude towards loyal customers alienating? Do people wish for a change here? Is it too self-righteous to expect small signs of gratitude for being a loyal customer? Is a customer purchasing half a year in advance more loyal than someone plexing every now and than probably missing out a few weeks or months a year? How do CCP place rewards in game without hurting the economy?

Or is it just a case of there is no need and HTFU snowflake?

I am tempted to just respond with a line from a Girl Scouts song;

Make new friends but keep the old,
One is silver, the other gold.

This is the essential divide, new players and old hands.  Any MMORPG that plans to survive and thrive needs both.  But there is always a tension between those two groups.  New players want to join and be accepted and be part of the game, often before they know the ropes, while the vets have been known to scoff at those with recent start dates because they haven’t paid their dues… or even done enough to prove they know which way is up.

And in EVE Online, a conflict driven game where we seem to go out of our way to find things that divide us from our fellow players, do you dare hand something to only one of the groups you need?

Veteran rewards are not a new thing in the MMORPG space.  I think the most ingrained one is the rewards in EverQuest II, a system that hands you something at regular intervals through your first year and then on every anniversary thereafter.

Having started EQII at launch, I have a whole host of veteran rewards ranging from titles to experience potions to house decor items to prestige housing.  I have liked a lot of the things I have received over the years.

Bitchin’ Firiona Vie poster for my room

Of course, since SOE set this up, it is a bit screwy.  This coming November EQII will be celebrating its 13th anniversary.  Then, in less that two weeks I will get my 14th anniversary reward because SOE gave everybody an extra 90 days of “seniority” (for lack of a better word) with their first four expansion, so player anniversaries are 360 days ahead of the game’s anniversary for some of us.

My current account age, already past 13 years

Then there was the point when SOE decided that time spent unsubscribed did not count towards your anniversary.  For the first few years then just marked from your account creation date.  Then somebody got angry about unsubscribed freeloaders coming back to reap rewards, so they coded the system to only count days when you were paying to play.  And then the game went free to play and suddenly people unsubscribe were still customers and they went back to your account creation date.

Having gotten past the transition to people playing for free with Alpha Clones, CCP could start doing something like that, handing out things to long time players.  I would keep it to purely cosmetic things… maybe a service ribbon on your medals page?  But then again, your creation date is right there in your profile, so anybody can see that.  But there ought to be something, as it would off-set a bit of what new and returning players get.

Because new and returning players do get the financial deals.  Offers for reduced subscription prices don’t make their way to current subscribers.  You need those incentives sometimes to tempt people to commit or return to the fold and get involved again.  And CCP does keep them low key enough that they are not an issue unlike.. sigh… we’re going back to the SOE well again.

I think the worst example of making your veterans feel short changed was the living legacy campaign, back when EQ and EQII were still subscription only.  SOE rained down equipment on players returning to the game… returning to use a summer of free time they had been given while loyal subscribers were still paying full fare… which caused more than its share of outrage in the forums.  I think that was about the time that “slap in the face” became the official corporate motto for SOE.

So, yeah… don’t do that.

Of course, the standard response to complaints from veterans of a game that new and returning players are getting special bennies is that they have been able to experience the game, having been subscribed and playing.  That is a benefit that money or incentives cannot retroactively change, but rings a bit hollow in many games.

However, in a game like EVE Online, that is actually a big deal.  If you were not around for The Great War, the Fountain War, the Halloween War, or the Casino War… well… you missed those events and they won’t ever be coming back.  The great battles at B-R5RB or 6VDT-H  or M-OEE8 (there are a few choices for that system, so take your pick; they were all special in their own way) were singular, player driven events and CCP couldn’t make them play out as before even if they wanted to.

The battle at the station at 6VDT-H

Even beyond the “great” events, there are hundreds of small but meaningful (to those who were there) events that happen every day in New Eden that shape the course of the game in subtle ways.  Every little fight can change somebody’s perspective on the game.

And then there are skill points, the ace in every veterans hand.  The surest sign of longevity in EVE Online, even in an age where you can buy your way into the club, is the amount of skill points you posses.  I just posted on Monday how I had passed the 170 million skill point mark, which is a lot of skill points to my mind, an achievement I obtained not by being good at the game or paying any extra cash or by blowing up many ships or from having done any great service to the community, but by merely hanging around the game off and on for more than a decade.

In any MMO, the veterans tend to accumulate wealth.  But with skill points they also accumulate the ability to do things in a way unlike most other games.  So I am pretty sure long time vets of the game don’t have much to complain about.  We don’t get discount offers to subscribe, but we also don’t have to PLEX our way into the skill points we need to do what we want.

So CCP can continue on its way when it comes to special event, which is sort of the way World of Warcraft does it; events and rewards are available to those who are playing when they happen, and if you’re not you miss out.

However, if CCP wanted to give players a little cosmetic indicator showing years of service… a special portrait frame or something like that… I wouldn’t object.  But it is totally not necessary.  I have skill points and accumulated items and ISK and screen shots and stories and memories enough to mark my status.

Anyway, that is my view.  Others looking into this month’s topic include:

• Warp Drive Active – Gifts for the Elders
• Across the Threshold – Veterans with benefits
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah – Congrats on Subscribing for a Long Time