Embracing the Iron Age in Valheim

I was actually a bit nervous about the move from bronze to iron in Valheim.  Getting bronze was some trouble at times.  At first it was just being out the black forest biomes… dangerous in just leather… to grab copper nodes close by our base.  Then, even as we geared up and the danger subsided, the copper nodes were now further afield and, before we found the trader, you could, if you optimized everything, carry maybe 20 copper ore.

And, of course, the thing about bronze being made from copper and tin, where you need 2 copper and 1 tin to get 1 bronze bar, so there was a lot to be hauled to get a stack of 30 bronze bars.

But at least the copper nodes were plentiful.  My map is still marked up with nodes yet to be harvested.  It was a pain, but it was there for the taking.  Having iron locked in crypts in swamps seemed like it would be a limiting factor, there being only so many crypts in a swamp.

Then we defeated The Edler and got the swamp keys and iron was going to be a thing.  Our first expedition into the swamp as a group of five led to a couple of wipes, but at least we came back with what seemed like a lot of iron scraps.  Since they refine to one iron bar each, we seemed to be set.

And then I saw the recipes back at our base.  Making a bronze item, weapon or armor, generally used just 8 bronze bars.  Making an iron item needed 20 iron bars.  Our ~60 iron scraps, hauled home by ship, wasn’t going to make use even three new items.  We set aside a bit for other things… you need iron to make the stone cutter which allows stone walls, and that seemed important too… and we were not going to be fully outfitted in iron any time soon.

So the next exploring goal became “find more swamp crypts” which meant, first, finding  more swamps.  Swamps were available.  Crypts, perhaps less so.  Or maybe we were just unlucky.  Ideally we wanted a swamp with a meadows biome next to it so we could set up an outpost with a portal to ease the mining and repairing routine.  Also, it needed to be on the water as we would need to ship all of our iron back to one of our main bases in order to refine it and use it.  I wasn’t keep to build smelters and forges all over the world.

There were a couple more crypts in the first swamp we were working on, so while people tinkered with that I went looking for more.

The first one I went for was a swamp we had spotted on our corpse recovery cruise when we tried to go the short way around the island and found it was not such a short route at all.  There was a swamp along the way, on the far side of the same island where we built the base to fight The Elder, with a meadows biome right next door that had an abandoned town right on the coast.

Bad People Base

Well, it wasn’t abandoned.  It was full of Dragur.  I ran into it early on, then ran away, marking it as “Bad People.”  But the Dragur were all trapped in the buildings, so I was able to slowly break open cracks in the buildings and use my bow to slay them one by one.  The only one I had problems with was a Dragur archer up in a tower that I couldn’t get up because the ladder spaces were too narrow.  So I set up a work bench at the bottom of it and use my hammer to remove the first floor, after which the second a third floors… and the Dragur… came slowly crashing down.  There is a very Wile E. Coyote-like aspect to watching physics check and pull things apart at a leisurely pace.

Once cleared out I fixed up one of the buildings, then tore down some of the others to build a palisade wall around the base. (I recently realized that they’re not actually called “palisades” in the game, I think I call them that because of Age of Empires II: Age of Kings.  But people know what I mean.)  Then I began to explore.

There was a narrow strip of black forest biome between my new base and then the swamp, leading to something like a band of perpetual conflict, as the swamp dwellers and the black forest mobs like to fight each other.  I found a Dragur from the swamp running around the base chasing a deer at one point.

Unfortunately, that swamp had just a single crypt in it.  That was not a promising sign for a group looking to get outfit in iron.  But we had seen a swamp across the water from there as well, which led me to our next swamp base.  Again, a bit of exploring found me a meadows biome where I could set up camp just a short walk from the swamp, though once again there was a narrow strip of black forest in between.  Another war zone.  But here I hit our first big batch of crypts.

West Swamp Base

Well, there were only five, but that was more than we had found in one swamp before.  By this point I had made myself an iron mace, all the better to explore with.  My philosophy is that I don’t need armor if the other guy is already dead.  The first crypt was a disappointment, with only 15 iron scraps, but after that I did much better.  I hauled out more than 150 armor scraps out of the first two combined, and did very well on the last three.  I had to sail back to our main base at the world swamp point three times in a Karve to haul it all home. I did have problems with a bridge somebody built.  I had to break down a section in the middle of the night.

Impediment to shipping

Fergoring started looking into a drawbridge solution, though we’ll save that for another crossing as I had looted the swamp by then.

Soon we had enough iron for everybody to get a weapon and start on their iron armor.

I was, by then, feeling the need for that weight belt from the trader, as carrying loads of scrap iron back to the base 15-20 at a time was a bit of a chore.  Our priority soon became finding him and, once focused on that task, he was found.  Then I was hauling as much as 35 a run, though generally just a full stack of 30 iron scraps plus other loot from the crypt.

Crypt loot built up our gold supply so that everybody could grab a belt as well.

Having drained the west swamp base of loot, I went looking for another swamp.  I had passed on when we were looking for the trader, so sailed back to it and found it to be almost ideal to our needs.  It was basically an island that was mostly swamp, with a postage stamp sized bit of meadows on the western shore, just big enough to set up a base. (It looks to be about the size of a suburban house lot.)  And in the swamp were more crypts.

Black Forest and Plains on the far side

I landed there with a boat and fought the locals for a bit until they relented, then build a small base surrounded by spikes.  Then I set up a portal inside.  This swamp was set to harvest.

South Swamp base

And the swamp was not far off.

Just a stroll to the swamp

By that point I was starting to feel confident in the swamp.  Maybe a bit too confident, as you can see the corpse marker on the map.  Failed to keep an eye on my health.  But the crypt looting continued at a rate that might make a 19th century member of the British Museum blush.  We have iron aplenty and more available to grab.  I went all in on the iron gear.

Fully geared up in iron in the swamp… hope it doesn’t rust

As I mentioned in my post earlier in the week, gear upgrades seem small when you look at the stats, but are quite noticeable when get out in the field.  All of that iron, plus a supply of health and poison resist meads, has made the swamp a place to explore.

Now, with the iron flowing, it is time to start thinking about the next boss, Bonemass.  His location was revealed by a rune in one of the swamps.  He is in another, distant swamp… of course… so we will need to mount an expedition to find his altar and a plan to assail him.

Quote of the Day – So Much Synergy

The expansion of MGI’s stake in gamigo is a positive step, as non-strategic shareholders will exit and gamigo can benefit from synergy potential with the other MGI companies. In particular, we see substantial synergy potential in customer acquisition for the gamigo games, in strengthening gamigo’s position in the mobile games sector and in the cooperation between the gamigo media companies and MGI’s media companies.

-Remco Westermann, CEO of Media and Games Invest plc in a press release

You know somebody is serious when they use the word “synergy” twice in a statement!

As reported over at Massively OP earlier this week, the primary shareholder in Gamigo, which operates a host of maintenance mode MMORPGs, including the Trion Worlds collection, which they acquired about a year and a half back.

Some of their pre-Trion collection

Back when they purchased the assets of Trion Worlds… the legal entity that was Trion itself imploded shortly thereafter… was the first time I took anything beyond a quick glace Gamigo, and it was difficult to figure out just what was going on.  They ran a lot of games… and quite a few MMOs, though who knows what people mean when they use that acronym these days… with a relatively small staff.

I think Blizzard has that many people working just on WoW

As for who owned the place, digging around Bloomberg and other sites was perhaps less than fruitful.  It was somewhere in a stack of companies, many of which were related to real estate investment.

Somewhere at the top of the tree

I suppose there isn’t much synergy between video games and real estate.

However, with the press release linked at the top, we now find that Media and Games Invest, plc (MGI), owned 53% of Gamigo and was moving in to acquire an additional 45% of the company, giving it a 98% lock on the whole thing.  I suppose we can just forget about Suryoyo Holding GmbH at this point.  Unless they are tied in to MGI somehow, they look to have cashed out.

MGI describes itself as an investment group and its other holdings include AppLift, which does mobile platform advertising, PubNative, which describes its business as “Advanced Mobile Monetization,” and ReachHero, which is into “Influencer Marketing.”

MGI itself is registered as a corporation in Malta according to Bloomberg, at an address that resolves to Papilio Services Limited, a company that specializes in getting companies Malta residency for tax purposes.  There is probably nothing shady in that, save for a desire to pay less in taxes.  If it had been Cyprus that would have been more of a red flag.

And MGI itself is 68% owned by Bodhivas GmbH.  Bloomberg doesn’t have anything on that, but it appears to be owned by Remco Westermann of the quote at the top of this post, so he owns the company that owns most of the company which he runs and which just bought out most of Gamigo, a company that was mostly owned by that company already.

There is enough synergy in that to make your head swim.

All of which doesn’t go very far in answering the question of what happens to the MMOs of Gamigo? That is, after all, the general topic of this blog.

Given the focus on mobile, ads, and monetization as well as the use of the words “synergy” and “efficiencies” I would have to say nothing good.  Then again, CEO Remco Westermann has been running Gamigo for a long stretch now (video of him at Gamescom 2013), so it isn’t like there is a new broom coming in to sweep away things.  Maybe nothing will change on the MMO front.

As always, we shall see.

The EVE Online March Update Brings Restrictions for Alpha Clones

CCP has released the March update for EVE Online and probably the biggest change in the patch comes at the expense of alpha clones.

Borrowing from an in-game event

CCP had previously experimented with expanding the features available to alpha clones, with the Arms Race expansion in December of 2017 opening up new options for them, including battlecruisers and battleships.

But then came alpha clone bots running level 4 distribution missions, which turn out to be a reasonably lucrative thing to do if you’re just going to let a script do it for you.  This was covered over at The Nosy Gamer and led directly to CCP decided to remove level 4 and 5 missions from the alpha clone capabilities.  So that is the big change this month:

Level 4 and 5 Agent missions are now only accessible for Omega Accounts

I am not sure level 5 missions were a thing for botting Alphas, but if you’re going to take away level 4 missions, then level 5 missions have to go too.

The March patch also adds the previously discussed feature that allows players to purchase and inject skills directly from the character tab, removing the need to go find a station that sells the skill.

Buying from the character sheet

CCP has decided on a straight 30% markup for purchasing skills via this option, leaving some middle ground for those making money hauling books to Jita.  Arbitrage remains ever so slightly alive, though there is now both a floor and a ceiling on the skill book prices.

There were also some changes to the war declaration system, which remains a work in progress, to close some of the holes that people were using to exploit the system.

Probably the most mysterious item in the patch notes is this gem:

Adjustments have been made to the respawn rates of certain nullsec anomalies. These adjustments are part of a gradual ongoing process that will see further tweaks for this type of content.

CCP isn’t always specific about what they have changed and not every change makes the patch notes.  But we have seen one like this before,  Back in December this very same text was used, and the rumor then was that Havens were being tinkered with to try and trim back super capital and titan ratting.  I suspect this may be more of the same.

The only other highlighted item in the patch notes is:

The tooltip of a repairing module in the ship hud will now have a count-down, showing how long until the module is fully repaired.

I assume that means when you’re being repaired while tethered, as nanite repair paste already has a progress indicator on the module.

Oh, and there is something about sound, to which the bitter vet response must be, “EVE has sound?”

Otherwise there are lots little fixes and tweaks and graphical anomalies that have been addressed.  Your Lockstep boots will no longer clip through your Commando pants I guess.

Anyway, the word is out that the March update has been deployed successfully.  You can read about all the details CCP has chosen to share in the Patch Notes and on the Updates page.

Delve – Mining Surge

The EVE Online monthly economic report for February came out on Friday, so it is time to see one again what is up in the New Eden economy.

As the title suggests, the first thing I want to look at is mining, which went up quite a bit in Delve during February.

February 2018 – Mining Value by Region

As the chart says, the value of ore mined in Delve in February stood at 13.5 trillion ISK, up substantially from the 8.1 trillion ISK value reported last month.

However, as I always bring up, mining value is based on the current market price of ore and minerals, so if the price spiked the value on the above chart might go up without there being any real change in mining output as measured in m3.  So what did the pricing do in last month?

February 2018 – Economic Indices

The price, after having risen some in January, looked to have stayed fairly flat over the last month.   Meanwhile, the output for other regions did not change as much.

February 2018 – Mining Value by Region – Bar Graph

Querious and Deklein both saw a bit of an increase, though nothing like the 66% increase that Delve saw.  The question is what drove that boost?  One theory is that as more moon mining platforms come online, they become a regular part of the yield, helping to increase total value.

Anyway, the Imperium appears to happily mining away in Fortress Delve.  And the coalition is looking to expand that.  Yesterday was a region-wide moon mining op in Querious.  All the moon mining platforms were set to come out together, so the super cap umbrella moved to cover the region as the locust-like swarm of Rorquals descended to strip the moons clean.  I haven’t heard anything about the success of the op… other than it started late, so some early risers got the best pickings… but if it went well I expect we will see the number for Querious rising in the March report.

The next boost in Delve, though much smaller than mining, was NPC bounties.  With everybody back from the Million Dollar Battle in January, it looks like people went to work to earn ISK to replace those lost fighters.

February 2018 – NPC Bounties by Region

That pushed the value of NPC bounties take to 10.5 trillion ISK, up 1.5 trillion from January.  Delve remains far and away the largest region for NPC bounties.

February 2018 – NPC Bounties by Region – Bar Graph

The overall percentage of bounties collected in null sec went up a bit, from 92.8% in January to 93.3% in February.

February 2018 – Bounties by Space Sec Rating

I guess that the Guardians Gala event did not spur High Sec to shoot more NPCs.

Overall NPC bounties saw a slight dip in February.

February 2018 – Top 8 ISK Sinks and Faucets

However, the bounties collected remain very high, something CCP seems disinclined to look into.

On the production front, Delve continues to keep pace right behind The Forge in total output, clocking in with 29 trillion ISK to The Forge’s 30 trillion ISK in production.

February 2018 – Production Values by Region

That narrowed the gap over last month though, as I point out every month, Jita’s location means that you must include Lonetrek and The Forge as part of the Jita focused economy.

February 2018 – Production Values by Region – Bar Graph

Neither Lonetrek nor The Citadel look like much compared to Delve, but combining them with The Forge gives the three a combined total of over 55 trillion ISK in production output.  Jita remains safe on its throne as the king of commerce in New Eden, and all the more so when the trade value charts are explores.

February 2018 – Trade Value by Region

The Forge, hosting Jita (and Perimeter), adds up to a total of 661 trillion ISK in trading value, a number so big that it dominates the bar graph pretty handily.

February 2018 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph

The bar graph without The Forge better shows the granularity of the other regions.

February 2018 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph, Forge Excluded

Without The Forge, Domain, home to Amarr, is the top trading destination, with Delve coming in third, ahead of the lesser high sec trade hubs.

Then there is the regional stats comparison graph that I like to look at every month just to get a high level view of some of the key regions.

February 2018 – Regional Summary Stats

Finally, the bonus graph this month has to be the Trade Balance graph.

Feb 2018 – Trade Balance by Region

The interesting item there is Providence, which exported 15.675 trillion ISK in February.

That represents the evacuation of assets by Provi-bloc, which seems to be crumbling in the face of the onslaught by Pandemic Legion and NCDot.  So, in addition to the hole in the north left by Pandemic Horde moving from Fade and Pure Blind to Geminate, there looks like there will be a change in Providence as PanFam continues its drive there.

PL owns the north of Providence now

That puts PL closer to the Legacy Coalition, which includes TEST and Brave, both favorite targets of PanFam in the past, as well as being much closer to Querious and Delve.  We will see what happens with that.

And we will also see next month what impact Burn Jita had, if any, on the economy of New Eden.

The monthly economic report is available as a dev blog and contains more charts than I have shown as well as the raw data used to generate them, if you want to roll your own.