BlizzConline and Burning Crusade Classic

We had the first day of BlizzConline yesterday.  There were some interesting announcements.  But what I was really there for was WoW Classic and The Burning Crusade expansion.  Holly Longdale got up there on the main stage… alone, no audience in the pandemic… during the opening ceremony and told us a bit about the coming of The Burning Crusade.  It wasn’t much more than a confirmation that it was coming, but it was at least that.  (Though, we knew it was coming due to that leak, but it is always good to hear somebody say it officially.)

Then, the first panel up was about that very topic.

How deep will they dive?

This was not what would have passed for a “deep dive” at past BlizzCon events.

The panel consisted of:

• Holly Longdale – Lead Producer for WoW Classic
• Patrick Dawson – Production Director for WoW
• Brian Birmingham – Lead Software Engineer for WoW Classic

The panel started with the three of them talking about their impressions of TBC back in the day for a bit, then moved on to some tales of getting the old code working within the current WoW framework, all of which was fine and interesting, but wasn’t delivering a lot of details that many fans… myself especially… were looking for.  There were no slides with bullet points or diagrams or any of the items one might have come to expect from such a presentation.

Towards the back half of the talk… it was only a 30 minute panel, so it wasn’t a long wait.. they finally started spilling out some details.

The first solid nugget in my notes was about Blood Elves and the Draenei.  They will be released into the game with the TBC pre-patch to allow players to have a chance to get leveled up some before everybody jumps through the dark portal.

Then details for characters and servers came up.

The current servers will become progression servers, a term many of us from EverQuest will remember, as SOE started doing that back in 2006 with The Sleeper and The Combine servers.  (see timeline) All of the current WoW Classic servers will move forward to TBC.

If you don’t want to go there, you will have an option.  On launch day you will make the choice for all of your characters, to stay and progress forward into TBC or to move to one of the new WoW Classic servers that will launch the same day that will remain forever vanilla.

If, at a later date, you regret your choice of committing to forever vanilla, there will be a paid service option that will let you copy a character from one of those servers to a TBC server.  You will then, at that moment, have two identical characters in each realm.  They will diverge as soon as you go through the portal and get your first gear drop, but you can be in both worlds.

Meanwhile, if you don’t want to play through all of that WoW Classic crap because TBC was your favorite part of WoW, Blizzard will have an option for you as well.  They will be offering a level 58 character boost… no Blood Elves or Draenei, sorry… so that you can jump straight to the dark portal and get going.  Oh, and you can only have one character boost per account.  If you want to raise an army of level 58s, you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.

No pricing was announced for either the copy or the level 58 character boost.

In fact, few hard details were shared.  There were certainly no dates.  Beta will start “soon,” for whatever value you care to assign to that variable.  The rumor about a May launch seems even more laughably wrong than it did when I first heard it give how little concrete we got from this.  The tone of the discussion indicated to me that they have more work to do and want to allow time to find and fix issues before it goes live.

If you are keen to see the panel, Blizzard posted it to their YouTube channel almost immediately after it was done, so here it is.

I do want to say how weird/wonderful it was to see Holly Longdale, so long the voice of EverQuest and something of a champion for the “classic” retro experience being not just a valid desire for fans, but a lucrative direction for companies to pursue.  There is clearly a synergy… and I use that word here unironically, which is so very rare for me… between her experience and where Blizzard now wants to go with their retro WoW experience.

Anyway, that was the WoW Classic part of BlizzConline.  Tomorrow, the rest of it.

Related:

• Kaylriene – Burning Crusade Classic
• Blizzard Watch – Burning Crusade Classic in Now Officially Announced
• Blizzard Watch – Burning Crusade Classic Changes
• Blizzard Watch – Burning Crusade Classic Content Phases

 

Ranger Regiment Joins the Imperium

Another item that came up while I was gone for a week was that the Ranger Regiment alliance had joined the Imperium.

Their DOTLAN status as of Feb 19, 2020

Ranger Regiment is one of what I think of as the Chinese diaspora groups that left the Serenity server in China after the Pan-Intergalactic Business Community essentially won EVE Online on that server, which drove people away. (Rooks & Kings did a video about the end of days on Serenity that is worth watching.)  So they and some other groups including Fraternity, The Army of Mango Alliance, and P.L.A came to the Tranquility server in order to play in a sandbox where one group didn’t own all the sand.

The rather brief post about Ranger Regiment making the move to the Imperium did not go very far into why they might have sought to join.  Not that I think there is much mystery as to why they were inclined to join.  The war in the north started with TEST attack Dead Coalition allegedly over something Sort Dragon, CSM member and head of the latter, said to which Vily, also a CSM member and military chief of the former, took grave offense or something.  Wars in New Eden have started over less.

This developed into a alliance between TEST and its coalition and Pandemic Horde and its coalition, against Dead Coalition, there being some bad blood there as well.  That balance saw the Imperium deploy a brand new SIG, about which I wrote previously, in support of Dead Coalition.

But Ranger Regiment has born the brunt of the attack.  Looking at their changes page on DOTLAN, the last month has seen them lose much of their holdings in Branch and Tenal, the once safe ratting and mining grounds of Dead Coalition.  The null sec influence maps paint the picture more graphically.

Ranger Regiment Northern Losses

A big block of those losses came after the announcement, so could be perhaps attributed to them packing up and leaving, but they have still been under pressure for more than a month and had been losing systems steadily over that time.  They still hold some systems in Branch and a chunk of Deklein, though I imagine they will let those go to somebody unless the Imperium wants to expand the arc of its holdings past the outpost systems in Cloud Ring and Fade that are at the far end of the Eye of Terror jump gate system.

I am not sure that we want to have to cover that much territory, and I am sure that wouldn’t make Sort Dragon particularly happy.  We’re allied for the moment, but it is a casual agreement that can change with the situation.  We shall see.

This also marks the first time in a while where an alliance size group has applied to join the Imperium.  There have been some other temporary alliances and agreements when we have worked with other groups, but most of my posts about the state of the coalition membership are from the Casino War era when come alliances were keen to exit.

The Imperium – August 10, 2016

If you look at the recent null sec influence maps, we are in an era where some areas between the coalitions have opened up to smaller, independent groups.  But there are still four key coalitions in null sec right now; Darkness and Dead Coalition in the north, Pandemic Horde and PanFam in the northeast, TEST and Legacy Coalition in the southeast, and Goonswarm and the Imperium in the west.  They have realigned to grind against each other multiple times now, which has caused them to consolidate and reorganize at points.  I suppose the question at the moment is whether or not Dead Coalition, which just lost an alliance, can hold up under the current onslaught.  The Imperium deployed a SIG to come help, but did not call the whole coalition out nor bring any super capitals north, so our commitment to their defense is less than all we could do.

Meanwhile, Dead Coalition is the one group that does not have an obvious and well known new player group that can funnel fresh recruits into the coalition.  They are already more of a regional power than the other three, and if they cannot bulk up they may end up as another small buffer state between them.

MER – New Eden Numbers for a New Year

We’re already into the back half of February and the Monthly Economic Report for January has finally made its appearance.  I suppose CCP had an update to push and event to launch, though the latter was pretty small while the former… well, the less said the better I suppose.

But now we have some charts and numbers to stare at finally.  So I might as well open up with mining, my usual start point.

January 2019 – Mining Value by Region

Mining was up some in our benchmark region of Delve, moving from 12.2 trillion ISK in ore mined to 14 trillion.

January 2019 – Mining Value by Region – Bar Graph

The bar graph shows that the top five regions for mining output remained the same, with Imperium owned Querious passing Detroid where Fraternity lives.  The top three all saw an increase in mining output, while the next two, Detroid and Branch saw a decrease.

Given that the price of ore was up slightly, if all things were otherwise equal, output should have been up.  That the Imperium and TEST (in Esoteria) have deployed some groups to the east of null sec may be suppressing output there.

January 2019 – Economic Indices

While up a bit, mineral prices are still near an all time low for New Eden.  That they bottomed out seems to suggest that we have hit a natural price floor.

On the production front, both Delve and The Forge, the top two regions, say a small decline.

January 2019 – Production Values by Region

Delve remains the top region, though the three regions that directly feed Jita, The Forge, Lonetrek, and The Citadel, still combine to more than Delve, totaling up to over 56 trillion ISK in production.

January 2019 – Production Values by Region – Bar Graph

Looking at the bar graph, you can see Esoteria (TEST) and Detroid (Fraternity) are not far behind, holding fifth and sixth place overall, indicating that they are also building up capital ships and the like.

On the market value front, The Forge, home of Jita, continues to dominate the numbers there.

January 2019 – Trade Value by Region

Trade in The Forge was down a little, but not enough to put any other region in the same ballpark, to the point that you have to exclude The Forge for the bar graph to show anything about the rest of New Eden.

January 2019 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph, Forge Excluded

The ranking of the second tier systems remained unchanged, with Domain, home of Amarr, in second followed by Delve.

And then there is the big ISK faucet in New Eden, NPC bounties.

January 2019 – NPC Bounties by Region

Delve, unsurprisingly, remained at the top of the heap, up two trillion ISK over December.  The Imperium has some SIGs and squads deployed, but otherwise continues to farm Delve under the protective supercap umbrella.

January 2019 – NPC Bounties by Region – Bar Graph

The next four regions remained in the same rank as before, Branch (GotG), Detroid (Fraternity), Esoteria (TEST), and Querious (Imperium), with all of them up for January.  That led to a new all time high.

January 2010 – Top Sinks and Faucets

NPC bounties peaked at that new all time high early in January, but was drawn back down some mid-month.  My guess is that the fighting in the east of null sec and the ongoing showdown over the Perimeter Keepstar trade hub drew some people away from their ISK collecting.  I keep thinking that maybe CCP will make some more tweaks to address this growing ISK glut, but players rolled right over the last change that was supposed to slow down titan and super ratting.  We’re like that.

Of course, maybe CCP has its eyes elsewhere.

January 2019 – Sinks and Faucets

Despite the peak in NPC bounties, overall ISK in the game went down slightly, with the infamous “Active ISK Delta,” which includes GM’s going after botters and RMT sales, pulling 95 trillion ISK out of the economy.  In addition to bans, they are moving level 4 and 5 missions to Omega only status to close the courier mission botting exploit.  Go CCP!

And, finally, the region summary chart with which I like to end, the regional summary.

January 2019 – Regional Stats

That gives you a nice overview of what each region has going on.

The Forge, while down from December, leads in total ship destruction.  That number that will likely go up with Burn Jita 2019 hitting this Friday.  And Geminate, where some SIGs and squads are deployed, saw its destruction number trending up.

And in a few weeks, or maybe less, we’ll see what February did in New Eden.

 

Trying Out the Guardians Galas Sites

The current Guardian’s Gala event in EVE Online is the sort of thing that makes me wonder what people really want out of such events or how they should be structured.

Guardians Gala Comes Again

Like such events before it, Guardian’s Gala is embedded in the structure of The Agency.  However, the grasp of The Agency has grown since I last spent some time on an event.  The Lifeblood expansion back in October expanded The Agency from an event framework to the “everything PvE” vision CCP had for it.  So rather than the event being its own thing it is now jammed in the frame with all things PvE though, if you haven’t hidden it already, you will get some event info on screen.

The Agency owns all your PvE

Having read the event preview over at The Nosy Gamer, I had a good idea as to what ship I might bring.  With the NPCs warping in on top of you it reminded me of the Warzone Extraction event from last September.  I grabbed the same alt that I ran those with along with the same ship, a passive tanked Drake.

Big Shiny Drake

I swapped out the resistance amplifiers to explosive and kinetic flavors in order to match the expected damage and, after one run, swapped the Scourge heavy assault missiles out for normal Scourge heavy missiles along with a target painter to improve damage application.

My crappy Drake fit

I’ll paste my crappy fit into a comment on the post if you’re interested… and if I remember.  I don’t recommend this fit particularly, I just happened to have it sitting around handy and my alt has all the skills for it maxed out.  I also cheaped out and shot plain T1 missiles, though I brought some faction missiles along just in case.

As with the Warzone event, the sites are all over New Eden and when you arrive in a site the NPCs have a propensity for warping in on top of you so you aren’t going to pull range and kite.  Unlike the other event, you won’t get warp scrambled or have your capacitor drain.  But you will be webbed many times over by the frigates in the site while the cruisers will sit at range with target painters on you blazing away.  That range turned out to be “just beyond my heavy assault missiles engagement envelope” which is why I dropped the HAMs for HMLs.  With heavy missiles my alt can hit out to 78km and, since I wasn’t neuted, I could run a target painter to help clean up the frigates.

On grid webbed and painted

The goal seems to be to slaughter as many hostiles as it takes… the number seems to be about 20 or so.. in order to draw out the guest of honor, so-called, who arrives in a battleship or a battlecruiser.  You then chase that down, blow it up, and you’re done with the site.

You are seriously done, because any leftover NPCs align out and warp off at that point.  You lose lock on them even before they’ve entered warp.

Anyway I took to shooting the frigates primarily because with the target painter they only required three missile salvos and the less ships slowing me down with webs the better in my book.  Meanwhile the sig of my fat ass Drake, boosted by shield extenders, was probably big enough that the cruisers painting me made no difference at all to damage being applied to me.  So a double win, frigs died faster and in doing so removed something slowing me down in completing the site.

Site rewards come from the wrecks, the primary source being the battleship/battlecruiser who has, for me at least, dropped a SKIN and a learning accelerator with every round.  The smaller ships also have loot, though more often than not it is metal scraps which are hardly worth the effort.

So, in general, easy-peasy.  Warp in, shoot small stuff until the big guy shows up, shoot him, profit.

The details are where things get a bit more messy.

For openers, this seems like a good way to kill new players.  It isn’t as deadly as the Warzone Extraction event, because this one doesn’t lock you down with a warp scrambler so you can escape… and being webbed will get you to warp more quickly… but things can still go sideways fast if you’re not prepared.  My alt with max shield skills and a passive fit Drake that regenerates at 188 DPS won’t have an issue, but somebody wandering into a site with their level 2 mission cruiser may be in for a rude awakening.

But do we care?  If we judge who the event is for based on the level of effort required, then it is something for canny PvE veterans I suppose.  It does seem to require people who can manipulate the overview because, as usual, the NPCs are unselected by default.

Then there is the open nature of the event.  Anybody can see the sites on their overview… even if the ships themselves might not show up because CCP… and can warp on in at any time.  And if somebody shows up and gets the last hit on the special end ship, then they get the loot.  Or, if they can get to the wreck of the last ship before you do and loot it, it is theirs unless you’re ready to take them on in a fight.  That is just the special nature of EVE Online, where you are never fully able to play away from your fellow capsuleers.  I went off to a remote area to run the sites and still had this happen to me once.  I can only image how this is playing out a few jumps from the crowd in Jita.

And then there is the whole point system that events in The Agency use to distribute additional rewards.  This time around they are not too bad in that they are mostly in line with what you are going to do anyway, which is run sites and shoot NPCs.

You earn ten points for killing, in sequence, 5, 10, 50, and then 100 of the small fry, ten points for finishing a site and then a couple of sites, and ten points for killing 1, 2, 5, then 10 of the loot pinatas at that end the site.  I managed 80 points my first night out, though I was thwarted twice on that last set, once when somebody showed up and destroyed the boss ahead of me and once when the boss got bored and warped off.  I’d read that they might warp off and that I should be patient, but after 10 minutes I figured he wasn’t coming back and that I’d been denied rewards and progress yet again.

The second night I passed 100 points and earned my first reward.

Something for my efforts!

Of course, that would have been a lot more impressive if I hadn’t already looted 1,700 Angels Arisen Fireworks already.  To get the next reward I need 300 points and, frankly, the event isn’t that much fun.

Of course, somebody out there is going to be obsessed with the ISK per hour measure of the event, so let me see if I can help on that front.

I timed myself on a couple of sites and it took about 15 minutes to complete and loot in my slow old Drake; extending out to maybe 20 mins if I bumbled my efforts to pick up loot along the way.  With a better ship/fit than mine you could easily cut that back some.  On the other hand, you also have to find a site.  I was pretty lucky out in my area of operation, being the only one in local and having a new site ready every time I finished.  Still, let’s be conservative and call it two sites an hour.

I got 250-300K ISK for just shooting things up.  I think shooing the cruisers more than the frigates could boost that, but whatever.

You get the skill booster which, depending on which one you get, is worth 15-50 million ISK.

And then there is the SKIN, which is the real wildcard.  I imagine the right SKIN would get you some ISK.  The problem is that the market is currently flooded with the Spirit SKINs that drop, all the more so because they are the same SKIN that dropped last year, only they changed the name of the set so I thought for a moment it might be a new SKIN.

But it isn’t.

It is still a good SKIN.  Not as good as a new, hot pink SKIN would be, but good.  In some cases, it is the best looking SKIN that you can find for a few ships.  But it is pretty common so it might be something to save until after the selling frenzy settles down.

The most valuable one I got was probably the Gallente Shuttle SKIN, which you cannot even list on the market.  You have to sell it via contract, a complication that means that there isn’t much competition for it.  But even then, you might get 10 million ISK or so, which isn’t all that much, and which requires somebody to know that the SKIN exists and that it is only available via contracts.

I’ll probably keep it just to add to my collection.

Otherwise the next most valuable SKIN I got was for a Phoenix dreadnought, which might be good for 6 million ISK on a lucky day.

And then there are fireworks.  I got a lot of fireworks off of wrecks.  And metal scraps.  So many metal scraps.  And then there was the odd ship module now and again, some of which were useful.

All told, if the odds were ever in your favor, you could bring in upwards of 100 million ISK per hour with optimum drops.  But that seems unlikely.  Reality is probably closer to 30 million ISK per hour, and that is indirect because you have to schlep back to a market hub to sell your loot.

Basically, you shouldn’t stop ratting in your super carrier to run off and harvest the bounty of Guardian’s Gala.  All the SKINs and learning accelerators you want will be on the market in Jita waiting for you and your ISK to show up.

The advanced booster boost

Even my dank 10-18 million ISK ticks in my little Ishtar are a better value as I get that and all the loot and salvage as well.

But as a distraction from whatever you’re doing in New Eden currently Guardian’s Gala probably isn’t the worst thing you could choose.  And you might even get a SKIN or two that you want.  And it makes for a few nice screen shots.

Alola Pokedex Binge Time

Sometimes I wonder how my brain works, why something is fun one day and not the next.

For stretches of December and January I couldn’t be bothered to pick up Pokemon Sun, or when I did I played just a little bit and then put it down again.

Sun and Moon

I finally got in the mood to play and managed to get through the main story line, as I noted last week.  But I did that mostly just to get to the end and say I got there way, heading straight down the final path and not exploring anything off to the side until I was champion.  This past weekend however, I suddenly got in the mood to play… or at least do one specific thing, which was work on the Pokedex.

For those who do not play, the Pokedex is the list of Pokemon in the game.  There is the game specific Pokedex, the regional Pokedex, which in the case of Pokemon Sun & Moon contains 302 Pokemon.  You get credit for just seeing a Pokemon on that list.  And then there is the National Pokedex, which is all Pokemon ever and contains 802 Pokemon.

I am worked on the Alola regional Pokedex in Pokemon Sun, though I am trying to catch them all as I go just to be the completionist.  So far I have caught 57% of the Pokemon in the game, up from the 41% I reported last week.

Rotom say 57% caught!

That basically equates to going from 123 to 173 caught, or about 50 new Pokemon.

On the overall front of just seeing all the Pokemon I am going even better.

Alola Pokedex stats

The first number is caught, the second number is seen, so I am at 259 of 302 seen, which is about 86% done.

In the Pokemon Sun & Moon version of the Pokedex it is also broken out by islands, which isn’t totally necessary… I suppose it narrows down where to hunt… and is kind of neat.  It even gives you a graphical representation of all the Pokemon from a given island.

All the Pokemon from Melemele island

Those that are in shadow I have yet to catch.  There is only one I have not seen, which I believe is Salamence.  Have to go find him.

You can actually “see” all of the Pokemon in the game if fight every trainer you pass and go through the story completely, without avoiding and side paths.  I failed on that at points, so that has been part of my replay action.  But catching them all, that requires you to do some trading.  Some of the Pokemon can only be caught on Pokemon Sun OR Pokemon Moon, but not both.

Fortunately there is the Global Trade Station.

The GTS came in with Pokemon Diamond & Pearl, as the DS series came with WiFi build-in.  It was pretty clunky back then, but it has gotten better with each generation of the game.  With Pokemon Sun & Moon it is pretty easy to get what you want… at least if you have the right mindset.

One of my gripes about GTS is that people often want things way out of proportion to what they are offering.  For example, I went onto the GTS to see if I could trade for a Persian, one of the Pokemon shaded in that picture above.  Not a tough Pokemon to get, but you have to raise up friendliness on a Meowth and then level it up before it will evolve into one.  Takes a little time, so I was hoping to skip that with a quick trade.  However, the trades that were up wanted legendaries in exchange for this rather run-of-the-mill Pokemon.  I saw somebody asking for a Dialga, the one-per-game final legendary from Pokemon Diamond.  Yeah, that is gonna happen.

On the other hand, if you’re willing to put up reasonable trades, they get filled pretty quickly.  There are a lot of like minded people out there looking to fill up their Pokedex.  So, for example, I put up a trade with a low level Drifloon, which is only in Pokemon Sun, asking for a Misdreavus of any level in trade, a Pokemon Moon exclusive that spawns in the same area.

Sun only for Moon only Pokemon

That trade went through pretty quickly, as did a number of similar parallel offers. (If you register your copy of Pokemon Sun or Moon at the Pokemon Global Link site it will show you your trade history.)

Likewise, there are a number of Pokemon that only evolve into their final form if you trade them.  So I had a stack of those that I listed over the weekend.

A selection of trades to evolve

Each of those evolved into a new form upon completion of the trade.

So the GTS was out there doing some of the lifting for me, but for the most part I was out running through tall grass to try and find wild Pokemon.  I played such a long stretch on Sunday that I got the low battery warning at one point.  The 3DS XL is good for quite a few hours of play, so that says something.

Of course, even knowing where to go takes some time.  The in-game help just puts a splotch on the map for you if you’ve seen the Pokemon already, but doesn’t provide you any details.  The official Pokemon Sun & Moon Guide book has some more info, but can be sparse on relevant details.  For a few I had to fall back on the internet to figure out if I was even close to doing the right thing to catch certain Pokemon.  (I found a good Sun & Moon Pokedex online here.)

For example, I wanted to catch a Happiny, a pink blob of a Pokemon that has two additional evolutions, so catching that one will eventually fill three slots in the Pokedex.  However, you can’t just go and find a Happiny.  It turns out it only shows up when another Pokemon calls for help, what I gather is called an “SOS battle.” (The guild uses this term, but doesn’t define it on the chart where it appears.)

So to get the Happiny I had to go down to Hau’oli City and troll through tall grass until I finally got a Pichu to appear.  The Pichu has a low chance of appearing, so it took a while.  That took a while, but eventually hit.

Then, once that fight was going, I used an Adrenaline Orb, which is an item that makes wild Pokemon more likely to call for help.  Since calling for help is often a more annoying than fun trait in a wild Pokemon, I was wondering why anybody would ever want to encourage that.  Now I know.

After using the orb, I then had to drag the fight out until the Pichu called for help AND a Happiny finally showed up. (I got another Pichu on the first couple of calls.)  Then it was time to defeat the initial Pichu, hit the Happiny with the move Hold Back, which my now level 71 Snorlax has just to catch Pokemon, and which will never reduce a Pokemon below 1 hit point (same as False Swipe), then throw Pokeballs at it until it was caught.

I got the Happiny then evolved it through to a Chansey and then a Blissey.  Three Pokemon down.

However, I still have a few on my list that require similar SOS battles.

And I also have a few Pokemon that only evolve to their final form on a trade, but which also require that the Pokemon in question is holding a specific item.  Since you can’t request a Pokemon and an item through the GTS I am going to have to get my daughter to trade with me at some point, since I don’t want to lose items.  I only trust the GTS when it requires both sides to do something.  I can see myself getting the same Pokemon in return, but without the item in question, so no evolution.

Ah well.  So that is what I spent a lot of the weekend doing, including most of Sunday, Pokemon hunting.