Monthly Archives: November 2020

November in Review

The Site

My latest anxiety about the blog revolves around screen shots.  Since I got the big monitor, the size of my screen shots has grown to 3440 pixels across.  That is considerably wider than the early days of the blog.  But the width of the text column remains about the same.  It grew a little bit about a decade back when I changed themes, going from ~450 pixels wide to ~700 pixels wide, but that still isn’t a lot.  I think my monitor for most of the life of the blog was 1,600 pixels across, so the width of screen shots has doubled.

Which means unless I crop screen shots down, the detail is lost as the site resizes them to fit in the text column.  That doesn’t seem so bad, because the image is always linked to a full size version, so if you click on the screen shot you can see it in its full glory.

The dramatic vista of Ardenweald

The problem is that, looking at the blog stats, almost nobody does that.  So now I fret a bit about images I post not having the impact I think they ought to.  To me the images are important, but that is because I am a visual person and the picture stirs up more memories than the written word, which tends to fill in some details that the images may not express.

This is aggravated by yet another WordPress.com change where, when you click on the first image after you arrive, they don’t show you the full image, but a smaller version in a WordPress.com frame that encourages you to blog at WP.com.

This is probably a bigger deal for my other blog, EVE Online Pictures which, as the name indicates, is just screen shots from EVE Online.  The lager images make for tiny ships in the preview image.

The titans are visible, the cruisers not so much

And, of course, having huge screen shots is a double edge sword even if I want to crop things down to be more visible.  There is a lot of space to crop and still have a decent size image, but sometimes I want so much of the image that it ends up still being huge even after some major cropping.

First world blogging problems I guess.  I’ll probably do a post about this to clarify my options.  Maybe with a poll.  I haven’t had a poll in a while.

One Year Ago

Brad McQuaid passed away.

Nintendo launched Pokemon Sword & Shield, the first real core RPG Pokemon games for the Switch.

BlizzCon was coming.  There was the apology and the big four announcements (Diablo IV, Shadowlands, Overwatch 2,  and something about Hearthstone).  Even with the pall of Hong Kong hanging over it, it still went better that BlizzCon 2018.  And Hong Kong?  Well, the new security law makes it unlawful for anybody inside or outside of China to criticize the government. No more protest, no more movement, just arrests.

World of Warcraft hit its fifteenth anniversary, which made WoW Classic all the more timely.  I charted out my own history with Blizzard and Azeroth.

WoW Classic was doing well, driving the biggest quarterly increase in subscriptions in the history of the franchise.  It also moved into Phase 2 of its progression.  The PvP fiasco that followed led to Blizz launching battlegrounds, slated for Phase 3, early.

Actually in WoW Classic the instance group took on Shadowfang Keep and the Stormwind Stockades, then started in on Gnomereagn.  We got in a second Gnomeregan run and also went after class quests.

I compared the four pending expansions from WoW, EQ, EQII, and LOTRO.

Standing Stone Games launched the delayed Minas Morgul expansion.

EverQuest II celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. Special servers were on the menu and I recalled my own journey with the game on my own fifteenth anniversary a couple days later.  I also joined in on the dragon event going on in the game.  That led to me playing more and leveling up… and getting side tracked, as tends to happen in Norrath.  But I made it to the level cap and learned to speak dragon along the way.

EVE Online got a series of updates, starting with a tiny one regarding login campaigns.  Then there was Team Talos and the Beat Around the Boosh update.  Then we got the Rapid Fire update that came with more Triglavian invasion changes.  And, finally, we got the HyperNet Relay update, which reintroduced gambling… or enhanced scamming… or maybe both… in New Eden.

The October MER showed NPC bounties rebounding after the chaos era blackout.

CCP had plans for more EVE Aether Wars tests while CCP Falcon left the company.

And, actually in in the game, we flew from Delve to Pure Blind to defend some sovereignty and I hit 210 million skill points.

Finally, Google Stadia launched and Bobby Kotick was talking up perpetual franchises.

Five Years Ago

The launch of Fallout 4 caused a dip in porn viewing on the internet.

Nintendo announced they were re-releasing Pokemon Red, Blue, & Yellow on the 3DS Virtual Console.

BlizzCon was approaching and I laid out a “need vs greed” list of things I thought would happen at the event.  But before BlizzCon there had to be the Q3 quarterly results.  The big news was that World of Warcraft held steady and had 5.5 million subscribers.  However, Blizzard said they were not going to talk about subscription numbers any more.  They would be talking about Candy Crush Saga though, having purchased King for 5.9 billion dollars.

Then BlizzCon came and I had to score my list.

It also slipped out a bit early that the WoW Legion expansion would not hit until summer 2016, September 21 being the last possible date listed, which seemed a long ways off.  I wasn’t yet ready to return to the game.  I used gold to grab a WoW Token for 30 days of play time and spend the most of it just earning that money back running missions in my garrison.

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Voice, the final part of the trilogy launched.

I dipped my toe back in Lord of the Rings Online for a bit.

Still playing Minecraft, I finished up the Great Northern Road and highlighted the guardian farm that Aaron built.

In New Eden, the Parallax expansion was released, the last named monthly update in Syndicate to be released.  From then on names were reserved for big expansions while monthly updates were simply know by their date… or New Eden date… or build number.  CCP can’t even hold the line on that naming scheme.

There was also the start of the ill-fated Fountain War Kickstarter campaign, which was plagued by hubris, gaffes, bad ideas, and “Grrr Goons” hostility.  Not that it didn’t deserve some of the latter as it was a clusterfuck and was not winning fast enough.  It was finally cancelled before the clock ran down, but it left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth.

There was also a Fountain War video which was better received… but then nobody was asking for $150,000 to produce it.

Meanwhile, another member of CSM X got cut.  Not a Goon.

CCP Quant took his EVE Vegas presentation and made it the first of the monthly EVE Economic reports to be publish.

And actually in the game, the Reavers were down in Wicked Creek to spar with TEST.  We were not there long, but it was one of those deployments that generated its own legends in the SIG.  We were called back because a small war was brewing in Cloud Ring against some foes, old and new.  Some had no sov and were hitting us from low sec.  We fell on them when we could in what was being dubbed the “Kickstarter War.”  Herein lay some of the seeds of what would become the “Casino War.”

Over at Daybreak, EverQuest II got the Terrors of Thalumbra of expansion while EverQuest got expansion number 22, The Broken Mirror.  There was the Phinigel “true box” progression server coming up for EverQuest.  The EverQuest II server consolidation was wrapping up, on Stormhold the Kingdom of Sky expansion was voted down, and the game turned 11, all of which I covered in a single post.

Daybreak also shut down Dragon’s Prophet, which lived on in Europe under another publisher.

Smed, gone from Daybreak, wanted to stop talking about money when it came to video games.

And finally, I had a test… a Star Wars test… for those wishing to date my daughter.

Ten Years Ago

I was talking about group size and roles.  That has come up again, especially since SWTOR groups seemed to be limited to four players.

On the retro front, I played some Total Annihilation.  Still one of the best RTS games ever.

I took a look at the soon to be defunct EverQuest II Extended.  It seemed quite busy.  Of course, I went Station Access so I could peek into EverQuest II  (with some issues) and EverQuest as well.

The rump instance group was wrapping up another Summer in Middle-earth at the far end of the Lone Lands as well as in and around Ost Guruth.

At the same time, Turbine was putting crafting materials in the LOTRO Store.  Meanwhile, the OTHER LOTRO store, the real life one, wasn’t doing much for me.

CCP announced that they were removing learning skills from EVE Online.  I hit 60 million skill points and was going to get to reallocate some of them as part of the skill point refund.

The Cataclysm open beta was coming to an end at last. I think part of the problem with the expansion was how long people were freely talking about the expansion… and playing it… before it came out.  We all knew what the hot new hunter pet would be and how much the world was going to be changed.  Cheap copies of WoW were not going to fix that.

Back in pre-Cataclysm Azeroth, I was summing up my Wintergrasp experiences and moaning about missing the damn Hallow’s End mask quest achievement again.

On the Pokemon front, I finished the National Pokedex in Pokemon SoulSilver.  In your face!  And the march to the release of Pokemon Black and White was commencing.

The Microsoft Kinect for XBox launched.

The news seemed to be confused as to whether or not flying cars had come at last.

And, finally, in the completion of a boyhood dream of mine, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, officially releasing me from caring about major league ball ever again.

Fifteen Years Ago

Guitar Hero launches for the PlayStation 2 and kicks off a series of games (and a competitor) for people who can play air guitar.

The New Game Experience, or NGE, hits Star Wars Galaxies, completely changing the character development path.  Landing just days after the Trials of Obi-wan expansion launched, players are enraged and SOE ends up offering refunds to players who bought the expansion.  The NGE becomes a weight around SOE’s neck and studio head John Smedley will end up being asked (and harassed) about the whole thing for many years.

Thirty Five Years Ago

Origin Systems releases Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, the last of the Ultima series I ended up playing.  I had an Apple II at the time, but by the time Ultima V came along I had a Mac and the Ultima series never went there.  Also, I liked Ultima III better.

Most Viewed Posts in November

  1. SuperData and Wavering WoW Subscriptions
  2. Minecraft and the Search for a Warm Ocean
  3. The WoW Shadowlands Pre-Patch with the Big Level Squish Arrives Today
  4. Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!
  5. CCP is Just Going to Keep Selling Skill Points for Cash
  6. The Crimson Harvest Event Returns to EVE Online for Halloween
  7. Robbing Some Space Banks
  8. The EverQuest Team Announces the Claws of Veeshan Expansion
  9. Leveling up Your Crafting Without Actually Crafting
  10. WoW Tokens Five Years Later
  11. The Fall of Niarja and the Shape of High Sec
  12. The November Update brings Null Sec Nerfs and Supercarrier Clone Bays to EVE Online

Spam Comments of the Month

wow ive been squished to level 50
[wow, me too!]

no asset saftey without quantum core
[Nope]

level 85 and.now ? everquest
[I feel your pain]

Game Time from ManicTime

A week off work for the Thanksgiving holiday gave me more free time for game play.  That the new WoW expansion, Shadowlands, launched gave me something on which to focus much of that free time.  I still played EVE Online and WoW Classic, but I spent more hours playing this month overall, and those extra hours went into retail WoW.

  • World of Warcraft – 74.50%
  • EVE Online – 13.38%
  • WoW Classic – 12.12%

Over at Time to Loot Naithin was doing the Five Game Challenge for November, where you stick to just five titles over a month.  I seem to have done that inadvertently, keeping to four titles if you count Pokemon Go.

EVE Online

The war goes on.  It is much closer to home now, being next door to 1DQ1-A.  But that just means more action more quickly.  We will see who gets tired or runs out of money first.  CCP is certainly doing its best to make sure the latter happens.

Pokemon Go

Life at level 40.  We mostly raid, do whatever event happens to be up… though I gave up quickly on that endless Nidoran event on Saturday because… and try to get in gyms to earn coins to buy remote raid passes to keep raiding from home.  We did contribute to Niantic’s bottom when we ran out of raid passes during the Azlef, Mesprit, and Uxie event.  But we caught all three.

Level: 40
Pokedex status: 593 (+9) caught, 616 (+8) seen
Mega Evolutions obtained: 8 of 9
Pokemon I want: Need some Unova Pokemon to fill in the gaps
Current buddy: Zwelious

World of Warcraft

In case you missed it, there was an expansion launched a week ago.  Shadowlands, and the run up to it, including exploring the dynamics of the level squish, got me back into the retail game.  There were plenty of posts here to reflect that.  I already have a character at level  cap.  But I think Blizz has kind of punted on the idea that level cap should be much of an achievement with this expansion.  More on that this week.

WoW Classic

While we continued on with the regular instance group runs, I don’t think any of us spent much time in Classic in between.  For a brief time I had characters in Classic that were higher level than any of mine in retail.  But I am still not to the level cap in old Azeroth.

Coming Up

There will no doubt be more posts about the WoW Shadowlands expansion.  I already have one in the can ready to post this week and another under way.  We shall see how long I stick with the new stuff though.

In WoW Classic we still have a couple of runs left for Blackrock Depths.  I suspect that there will be three more posts this month about that, if the group can get together over the holidays.

In EVE Online the war continues and I doubt there will be any resolution come December.  Just more fighting and destruction. (The 21 Weeks of World War Bee post will go up tomorrow, having been pre-empted by this Month in Review post.  I have not given up on that yet.)

Pokemon Go has announced its Pokemon Go Beyond plan, with seasons, Pokemon from a new region, and a level cap increase in the offing.  We got to level 40 just in time I guess.  We’ll see how that goes.

Maybe I’ll even play something besides those four games.  The Steam Winter Sale will show up and maybe I’ll launch that and get inspired to play something else.

And, of course, with December here you can expect the usual raft of year in review posts, though I have considered simply trying to forget 2020 altogether.  I will say that the events of the year upset my start of the year predictions.  I’m mostly wrong most years, but I ended up especially wrong this year.  We’ll get to that soon though.

Ardenweald and the Electric Blue Dream

Having finished up the main story line in Maldraxxus, it was time to move on to the next zone, Ardenweald, which is home to forest dwellers and nature lovers of all kind.  After the mayhem of Maldraxxus I was a bit skeptical of a tree-hugging zone.

This was not helped by the fact that the first couple of fairies you run into are named Moonberry and Featherlight.  How very granola.

But then pretty much the first thing they ask you to do is kill a guy, not because of bad feelings or memories, but because he is simply in the way, and I was appeased.  Murder for hire is the same in Birkenstocks as it in hobnail boots.  So off we went.

Faeries gotta slay too I guess

While I am not a huge fan of the elven forest lifestyle, I am also not set against it either.  Ardenweald isn’t as bright and sunny as Bastion, nor does it scream out at you to have your war face on at all times like Maldraxxus.  There are stretches where the zone presents an inviting open vista.

Out on the open road into the blue

But like the elves, there is always a darkness out there somewhere, and you end up delving into it naturally enough.  Darkness and blue.  So much blue.  Dark blues, medium blues, and the blues you generally encounter in the UI’s of science fiction games.

There is a “blue bear-y” joke in there

After the grotesque intensity of Maldraxxus, Ardenweald was a bit more of a relaxing ride.  There were some intense points, and being in a forest with hills and valleys always means that the path to where you want to go isn’t always straight, but it moved along smoothly.  Maybe a bit too smoothly, as I kind of lost the thread of the story as I went through.  In the end it was all about getting an intro to the Winter Queen, proving your worth, and getting her to make the right decision.

And something about a dragon that has since slipped my brain…

Anyway, I made it through to the end, and got my audience with the Winter Queen.

She is taller in person than in the visions

After that it was back to Oribos to report in and get the achievement for the story line.

Add another one to the list

There wasn’t even a side trip into the Maw this time around.  Not a bad zone, but it didn’t really stick with me.  By the time I was done a lot of what had transpired was forgotten.

But finishing up there opened up the next zone for me, Ravendreth and the final faction of the expansion.

In Search of Mesprit

Since we hit level 40 our Pokemon Go our play has largely been about raiding and catching new Pokemon for the Pokedex.  This week seemed like a good time for for raids as three Sinnoh Pokemon were up on the list, Azlef, Mesprit, and Uxie.

The three featured Pokemon

When the raids started on Tuesday afternoon, our regular group lit up my phone with texts when the first one of them was spotted.  We bagged Azlef pretty quickly.  What I didn’t realize until somebody mentioned it in the text stream was that each of the three were only available in specific regions.  According to Pokemon.com:

  • Trainers in the Asia-Pacific region may encounter Uxie
  • Trainers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India may encounter Mesprit
  • Trainers in the Americas and Greenland may encounter Azelf

So we were only going to ever get Azlef locally.

As it so happened, one of the friends who had picked up my friend code when I posted it to Twitter happened to be in Japan and sent me an invite for an Uxie raid when I had Pokemon Go up on my phone in front of my face.  I jumped in and managed to catch Uxie, so I had two of the three.  (I’ve posted my friend code here before. It is 3216 2939 2424.)

From Japan

Getting Mesprit though, expecting to catch a random invite at just the right moment seemed unlikely to happen twice in a week.  I have a few people on my friend’s list in Europe, but what are the odds of lucking out again?

One of the more intrepid members of our local raid team suggested using one of the raid servers on Discord.  That was what she was doing to try and get the two out of region catches.

So I looked up servers and found a likely suspect called Pokemon GO Raids.  You can click on that link to join the server if you have a Discord account.  I am playing under my usual handle, in this case WilhelmArcturus because the game doesn’t allow spaces.

Once I sorted through the instructions and rules, I got myself ready to try and get in on a Mesprit raid… which basically adds up to sitting in the “mesprit-only” channel and waiting for somebody to post a raid.  Then you have to be one of the first five to respond… you can only remote invite five friends… and get acknowledged.  Then the person who posted the raid shares their friend code, you send a friend invite, get accepted, then they go into the raid and invite the five people picked.

All of this means being quick to respond in the channel.  I made it into one raid, though I did not manage to catch Mesprit on the first try, so I have to go again.  It also means being in the channel at the right time of day.  Raids in Pokemon Go only seem to run from about 8am to 10pm locally, which is all EMEA times in this case, which means the mornings into the early afternoon my time are the likely points when I might get a raid.

So I am staring at the channel, waiting for somebody to announce a raid.

Addendum:

Of course, almost as this posted I managed to get into a Mesprit raid and actually caught it this time.

Got em!

This one came all the way from the UK.

An English Pokemon

Now I have my wife’s phone to see if I can catch one for her.

Second Update:

Caught one for my wife as well.  It was from Malta no less.

Debut in the Theater of Pain

The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. It takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch. But you don’t want to blow your wad. So then you gotta cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.

-Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

My first impressions of the Shadowlands expansion were colored by the contrast between the epic struggle in the Maw followed by the bland, Elysium fields of Bastion, where everybody seems to be working on their personal issues.  It felt like something of a downshift into.  I understand the Rob Gordon rules of cooling it off a notch, but Bastion felt like a few notches down.

I get that Oribos and Bastion had to shoulder the intro segment, had to get you settled and set the ground work for what was to come.  But, as I said in my previous post, one minute we’re fighting beside heroes in the Maw, the next we’re talking about our feelings and being shown where the Inn is located.

I will also grant that Bastion got better by the end, but that largely involved some invaders from another zone, Maldraxxus, which is, naturally enough, the hook to send you off to that zone.  You head back to Oribos and get sent off to Maldraxxus, flying in over a very different landscape from Bastion.

It isn’t easy being green

But the highlight of the view is flying over an arena called the Theater of Pain.

The Theater of Pain

It is huge and detailed, ringed with giant spectators, and the floor bustles with activity as you fly over it.  I immediately wondered if I would be able to go inside, and I was not disappointed.  You are pretty much flung immediately into the giant brawl that dominates the center of the arena.

The brawl awaits

If is a giant battle royale with a host of NPCs, regular and elite, with other players mixed in as well.  I have to say that I enjoyed this initial Maldraxxus  event a lot.  Part of me just likes getting in the thick of things and whacking mobs with my shovel.  It was crazy chaotic and the antidote to the tame reflection of Bastion.

As you battle your way through the event, the story of the zone comes into focus.  There is dissent between the powers of Maldraxxus, and of course, you’re there just in time, a champion who has bested the arena, to help try and set things right.

Leadership goes to the large in Maldraxxus

Maldraxxusis the land of war in the Shadowlands, but it is also a place of the crazy grotesque.  Stitches would fit right in… barely be noticed… in the landscape of Maldraxxus.  And as the land of war, there isn’t a lot of stopping to talk about one’s feelings.  Leave that to Bastion.  If you’re hear, you’re going to fight.

You are, naturally enough, the champion who can help the locals put down the rebellion and restore order by finding and activating the five runs, one for each house of Maldraxxus.

Rune Three Finished

Also, the spot in the picture above is where I, and a lot of people seemed to get stalled.  You are told to activate a rune, but it isn’t really clear how you do that at first glance.  I saw people bumping all over the place.  What you do is stand in the shiny swirl on the ground, which gives you a button to activate your current rune.

So you get to ride about visiting each of the houses that make up the zone.  There are probably mounts that fit more in with the theme, but I felt being on my chopper set the right mood in the land of war.

Riding in Maldraxxus

Also, I still like that mount more than a decade later.  And I actually saw a few of them out and about.

The passenger ability is fun as well

There are a lot of the standard quest tropes, though I was okay with them giving up on the “thow ingredients as the NPC calls them out” potion making mechanic that has been in the last few expansions at various points.  This time around it seemed to be “just throw the stuff in the pot already and let’s move on with things” on that front.

There were a couple of new things.  I cannot, for example, recall having had to play dead to get dragged off into an enemy camp before.

I’m dead, just carry me inside please

As Peter Falk said in Anzio, the living tend to lay on the stomachs in a protective fashion while the dead tend to just flop on their backs.  I don’t know if that is true, but it seems reasonable.

But there is also plenty of the same, like riding on a great big construct to slaughter the bad guys.

Going into battle on an abomination

As Bastion is light and airy, Maldraxxus does carry its dark and somewhat sickly green theme throughout most of the zone, trending towards orange, blue, or gray in places, but always dank in feeling.

Zangarmarsh meets Icecrown in a way… mushrooms and bone architecture

Before you’re done with the zone you do get to pop back into the Maw for a bit, but only to rescue on person.  You don’t see Jaina, Anduin, Baine, or Thrall, though you get a quick clip of them suffering in Toghast, a tower within the Maw.  But they are still holding out while you figure out what is going on elsewhere.  Then it is back to the portal and out of there.

Who said leaving the Maw was hard? I do it regularly.

After obtaining the five runes, you open the door to speak with the Primus… and get your achievement for having finished up the basic story line.

A three-fer

I also finally received an upgrade to the sword I picked up in the pre-launch events.

A better blade at last

Vain as I am I guess, I keep transmoging my new gear into my standard look, the green armor, Wildhammer Clan tabard, and the silver shovel as my weapon.  I just like my old look, though the transmog costs are eating into my gold.  Blizz will make you suffer, financially at least, for fashion.

All in all, great zone, 10/10, would adventure there again.  I want to get another melee class in there, maybe a Deathknight, to do the Theater of Pain intro.  That set the tone for the whole zone.  I even managed to get the exploration achievement while I was there, probably the first step towards some eventual pathfinder achievement.

explored

Meanwhile I have probably a third of Bastion still to explore.

And now the main story line has sent me off to the next zone, Ardenweald, which is said to be all nature, forests, and elves.  We shall see if my Maldraxxus high will carry me forward.

On the general game front, I keep seeing Blizz drop patches.  They claim to have fixed some of the phasing issues, though I haven’t had a chance to try that out since that patch.  Blizz does seem to have messed up chat channels though.  I have a few tabs for specific things, like guild chat.  For the moment everything seems to get dumped into the main tab and all the others are empty.  I’m sure they’ll get to it, but still… and there have been times again when the server has been a bit laggy.

My main problem though seems to be not being able to see the quest giver question mark floating over the heads of giant mobs.  I keep turning around looking for where the quest is, only to find that I need to look up.

SuperData Sees WoW Rising and Crusader Kings 3 Holding On

SuperData Research published their monthly digital revenue chart for October so it is time to see what is up in video games.  As has become almost standard so far in 2020, their report opens up with another statement about how much video game revenue is up over the previous year.

  • Consumers spent $10.6B on digital games in October 2020, up 14% year-over-year. Consistent with ongoing trends, console spending grew the fastest, with earnings up 18% over 2019. This was especially impressive growth given that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare launched in October 2019 and many of the biggest titles of the 2020 holiday season were not released until November. Earnings on other platforms rose as well, with mobile up 15% and PC up 10%.

Again, people staying home, or trying to, has led to more consumption on the video game front.

And then there is the chart itself.

SuperData Research Top 10 – October 2020

On the PC end of the chart the usual top four remain in place, swapping spots but otherwise the same crowd as always.  But in fifth position, or the first actually competitive position most months, World of Warcraft shows up.  This is not unexpected as the warm up for the Shadowlands expansion was in play.

Then there is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in sixth and Roblox in seventh spot.

And then we find Crusader Kings III still on the chart for October in spot eight.  It is down from fifth spot last month, but the surprise is that it stayed on the chart at all.  Games that are not online subscription or cash shop based tend to peak quickly and fade, usually just appearing for a single month.  But CK3 breaks the mold again.

That is followed by Fornite and Valorant, while World of Tanks fell off the list again.

On the console column, NBA 2K21 tops the list, followed by FIFA 21.  And down at the bottom of the list is Grand Theft Auto V.  It has been a regular on the list since it began, can it hold on much longer?

And on the mobile end of the chart Pokemon Go is back at the top of the chart.  It passed the 4 billion dollar total revenue mark during the summer and just keeps on going.

Then there is Genshin Impact, which made both the console and mobile charts.  SuperData has a bullet point about it:

  • Genshin Impact from miHoYo was October’s highest-grossing game. The title, which was released on September 28 on mobile, PlayStation 4 and PC, is an unprecedented international success for a game made by a Chinese developer. Genshin Impact features monetization mechanics commonly found in mobile games like collecting characters through gacha (where users pay for the chance to get random in-game items) and limited-time events. However, gameplay inspired by console role-playing games and action-adventure titles attracted players who may have avoided mobile gacha games in the past.

Last months number one, Free Fire, the shooter title from Singapore, carried on in third position in October.

Perennial list member Candy Crush Saga held on another month, securing seventh position.  And down at the bottom of the list is Honour of Kings, which had a run in first place for much of this year.  Still, don’t cry for its fall, being in the top ten overall still means it is probably raking in the bucks.

Other bullet points from the SuperData report:

  • FIFA 21 sold 1.5M digital units. Compared to the launch month of FIFA 20, launch month digital sales and revenue were both up (1.2M vs. 1.5M for sales). However Electronic Arts had a significantly shorter launch month period in which to sell FIFA 20 since it was released only at the end of September, while FIFA 21 went on sale at the start of October.
  • Watch Dogs: Legion from Ubisoft broke franchise records, selling 1.9M digital units.  Even though the game was only on sale for the final three days in October, its first month sales were significantly higher than Watch Dogs 2, which was released on November 15, 2016 and sold 431K digital units. The latest game likely benefited from several free giveaways of Watch Dogs 2 earlier in 2020, which built up the franchise’s audience.
  • Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time from Activision Blizzard sold 402K digital units, a smaller total than recent remakes of titles in the franchise. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy sold 520K digital units in June 2017 (it released on the last day of the month), while Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled sold 552K copies in June 2019. There was likely less pent-up demand for Crash 4 and the title was also released during a more crowded release period than its predecessors. First-month earnings were, however, the highest of modern Crash games since Crash 4 launched at a standard $59.99 price point instead of $39.99, like the recent remakes.
  • Star Wars: Squadrons sold 1.1M digital units in October, putting it ahead of the launch of Star Wars: Battlefront II (1.0M) and behind Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2.9M).
  • The Star Wars IP attracted a sizable audience to the title even though it belonged to the niche space combat subgenre. In contrast to Crash 4, Squadrons earnings were lower than those of other modern Star Wars games given its lower $39.99 price.
  • SuperData will now regularly be reporting on the performance of game subscription services, which give users access to a library of premium titles at a fixed monthly price. Publishers and platform holders have invested heavily in Netflix-style subscription services in order to generate recurring revenue. SuperData is currently covering Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Now and EA Play.* Combined revenue for these services in October was up 142% year-over-year and subscriber numbers rose 113%. Xbox Game Pass accounted for the majority of growth in both cases.

EverQuest Claws of Veeshan Expansion to Launch on December 8th

Daybreak announced that the upcoming EverQuest expansion, Claws of Veeshan, will launch on Tuesday, December 8th.

Dragons, always dragons

This, the 27th expansion to the 1999 title, is currently available for pre-order from Daybreak and is available in four price levels:

  • Standard Edition – $34.99
  • Collector’s Edition – $89.99
  • Premium Edition – $139.99
  • Friends & Family Edition – $249.99

The question is how much additional fluff do you want with your expansion?  The “Freinds & Family Edition” includes an in-game tradeable token that can be redeemed for a base copy of the expansion.

Interestingly, or oddly, the base package does not include the insta-level heroic character options, though the fact that the boost only gets you to level 85 still in a game where the level cap is now 30 levels beyond that does make one question Daybreak yet again.  When will they fix that?

The expansion, which was announced back in October, includes the following:

  • 6 Expansion Zones – Follow the chilling trail of ice into the lands dominated by the dragons of Velious. Find the source of the mysterious and restless ice and put an end to the dangers that have enveloped the entire continent.
  • New Raids, Quests, and Missions
  • New Spells, Combat Abilities, and AAs
  • New Collections
  • Dragon’s Hoard – A dragon’s hoard for those that have collected so many items, it is nigh impossible to contain. This is an additional space to hold all those items you may need once more but do not need now.

That sounds about right for a Norrath expansion.

Punching Sheep with Marshal Windsor

It was time to return once more to Blackrock Depths and to continue our adventures there.

Blackrock Depths map

Last time we successfully finished the Franclorn Forgewright quest which gave us the Shadowforged Key.  That gave us some options going into this week.  Our group was:

  • Viniki – level 55 gnome warrior
  • Skronk – level 55 dwarf priest
  • Moronae – level 55 night elf druid
  • Ula – level 54 gnome mage

We assembled at Thorium Point and ran over to the mountain, down the chains, through the mine, and into the instance.

Into the mountain

With the Shadowforged key, we were able to head off to the left and through the locked door.

New paths available

We decided to make Marshal Windsor’s quest our goal for the run, which meant defeating General Angerforge and Golem Lord Arglemach, who are at points 13 and 14 on the map above.  As to how to get to them… well, it was a good thing Skronk remembered or had done some research, because the map is pretty bad at showing the various elevations in the instance.

We headed through the gate, to the right, and up into a side door that put us behind the Ring of Law.  There we had to get around to a large gear assembly which would deploy a bridge across the Dark Iron Highway and give us access to our targets.

The bridging gear

We managed to clear that area and deploy the bridge.  We then started working our way towards our targets.  We moved pretty quickly and even managed to bypass one group, and successfully avoided bumping into them by accident later, which was what happened to us last time.

And this was kind of key as we would walk past that group a few times.

Our first bit of trouble was a group of four, two fire elementals and two Dark Iron Dwarves, one of which was a healer.  We decided to kill the healer first, but the elementals hit very hard and I went down suddenly on a crit and we ended up wiping.

We released and ran back and finished them off, but things got out of control again with the next group and another wipe happened.

Viniki and Ula down as the wipe progresses

The fire elementals hit hard, but this also did not bode well for the upcoming fights.

General Angerforge was just down the steps from the elementals, so we made sure to clear them all as well as the groups that were off to either side of the general.  We then got ourselves ready to go.

Ready for Angerforge

Angerforge has a group of non-elites with him that are fairly easy to kill.  Then, when he is down to low health, he summons another group.  Our plan was to freeze and burn the initial non-elites, which went well.  We then burned down Angerforge until he called for help.  At that point, as his team ran in, I lit off my AOE taunt, which has a 10 minute cool down, so I use it only at need.  The plan was to get them all on me, do more freeze and burn, and finish off Angerforge.

My taunt worked.  All the mobs ran to me… and beat the crap out of me, killing me.

Viniki down again

This ended up as a wipe, but we managed to bring down General Angerforge before the last of us died.  We released and ran back to the instance and kept going straight back to the scene of the fight.  I had some unlooted mobs disappear after a previous wipe, so wanted to get back just in case.

We were in luck.  His helpers had disappeared, so we were able to loot the first item for Marshal Windsor.  Then it was across the way to the Manufactory and Golem Lord Arglemach.

Into the Manufactory

Golem Lord Arglemach was straight ahead, but we went about and cleared out the whole area before heading to him.  He will call any left for help.  So we proceeded with care, pulling individuals and groups.  They are mostly non-elite, but there were some elites mixed in.  And once that was done we turned to face Arglemach.

Arglemach waits

He has two golem helpers with him.  A quick check of the fight suggested that we kill the golems as quickly as possible, then finish off Arglemach.  Our first run was fast.  I pulled Arglemach and he and the golems came at me, and beat me down with a 1,500 burst of damage.  It was a quick wipe.

Viniki down in seconds

But we did learn a few things.  The first was that Arglemach unleashes some lightning attacks that are nature based.  We all had two nature resist potions on us.  So the next run we took the potions to reduce damage from Arglemach, and set to slay the golems first again.  And we did fairly well, we managed to get both golems down, but didn’t have enough left in the tank to finish the boss.

Helpers down, Arglemach still up

That didn’t further our cause though, as the golems just loaded back again after the fight.  You have to kill Arglemach or you get nothing.  So we looked at the combat log again and decided we needed to kill the golem tossing fire balls at us first.  He was doing the most damage.  So we took out potions again, focused on the fire golem, and then I shot him to start the fight.  And he just stood there launching fire balls while Arglemach and the other one ran at us.  I panicked and ran to the target golem and got out of healing range of Skronk and died quickly.

Barely scratched them this time

The fight happened so fast that Moronae didn’t even get a hit in, so was able to stealth and hide without dying.  He popped his combat ress on Skronk, who in turn was able to ress Ula and I, saving us the run back.

At this point we had blown our nature resist potions.  Skronk still had one extra for me, and Moronae still had his up, since he didn’t die.  So we lined up for our fourth run.  It was starting to feel like we were not going to be able to get past this boss.  But we had another go in us.  We planned to all bring it to the fire ball golem this time, to get him down fast.  Then the second golem, and then Arglemach.  So in we went.

And this time it worked.  We got the first golem down fast, then the second, and had plenty of gas left in the tank for Arglemach.  He went down and we were able to collect the other piece for Marshal Windsor.

Golem Lord Arglemach down at last

That done, we went back out the way we had come and set about clearing the big open area between the detention block and the instance exit in anticipation of having to having to finally escort Marshal Windsor out of the dungeon.

We did that and started down the detention block, clearing as we went.  We got in over our heads at one point when, working on a group of four, Ula mis-targeted and brought the next group down on us as well.  And then a group of dogs patrolling the detention block walked into range and joined the fight.

Things looked bad.  But somehow we managed to pull it off.  Skonk and I used every skill that had a long cool down to keep going, and Moronae died at the end of the fight, but in the end the bad guys were all down.

We survive the brawl in the hall

We got Moronae ressed up and carried on, clearing to Marshal Windsor’s cell.  We even cleared the group just past the cell, just to be sure we didn’t get a proximity pull by mistake.  Skronk opened up the cell door and we went in to talk to him.  We turned in the quest, for which he gave us 90 silver, then immediately wanted to get out of there.  But first he wanted to go get his stuff.

I cannot leave without my stuff!

I always wonder who writes the scripts for escort mobs and thinks that somebody locked in a dungeon’s first thought on seeing rescuers is, “I’m saved, but I cannot leave without my random and likely replaceable stuff.”  Of course, Windsor didn’t even suggest leaving on our first two visits.

And then I remembered where the storage area was.  It was on the other half of the detention block loop.  We had cleared the most direct route to Marshal Windsor, but not the path he was about to take.  To illustrate:

The Detention Block

The blue arrow is the path we cleared as we came in.  The orange arrow is where Marshal Windsor was going to go.  We had not cleared that.  So it was on our bicycles to keep up with Windsor and keep him safe despite himself.

I will say, for a guy in just his shorts… where was he keeping that silver he gave us… he got right into the spirit of battle.

Windsor bringing the pain

Unfortunately, he could be kind of random as to who he would attack.  He had a propensity to start beating on whichever mob Ula managed to sheep during these fights.  He seemed to delight in it, changing to beat on the sheep when he had a mind.

We got a break part way through as he stops at Dughal Stormwing’s cell so we can free him as well.

Dughal gets free

He doesn’t join the fun, just runs off into the instance and disappears.

Once he was free and we rested up a bit, Marshal Windsor went on towards his stuff.  We ended up outside the storeroom with only two more mobs between us and the exit of the instance.  Windsor just stood there for a bit, then suddenly announced he was going into the room.

He’s going in!

Of course, there was a group of mobs in that room and, in our attempt to keep Windsor alive and grab aggro and kill them we managed to wipe.

Dead in the storeroom

Windsor fought on, but died not too long after.  We released and ran back, but our expectations were low.  In Classic, losing an escort mob in an instance generally means resetting the instance and starting over.  And such was the case here.  But at least we would be read for next run.

At that point, we called it and headed out.  Skronk and I both managed to finish the fanny packs quest, so we got to turn that in.  Next time around we’ll finish up Marshal Windsor and then move on to the next item in the instance.  There is still a lot of that map we haven’t seen yet.

The Explosive Velocity Update Lands in EVE Online

Here in the shadow of the Shadowlands launch CCP dropped an update of their own.  The Explosive Velocity update takes aim at torpedoes and a few neglected hulls.

Is this the work of Team Talos?

Torpedoes will see the following changes that will make them more effective.

  • All XL Torpedoes:
    • Explosion Velocity increased by 20%
    • Missile Velocity increased by 20%
    • Damage increased by 10%
  • All Torpedoes:
    • Explosion Radius reduced by 10%
    • Explosion Velocity increased by 10%
    • Missile Velocity increased by 20%
    • Maximum Flight Time increased by 20%
  • Torpedo Launcher:
    • CPU usage and Powergrid usage reduced by 7%

That will make ships that can use torpedoes a little more effective and give them a little more power grid to play with when launchers are mounted.

One set of torpedo using hulls did get a bit of a nerf.  Stealth bombers were already pretty powerful out in the wild and remain quite popular, so they took a hit to keep them from being too OP.

  • Bonus to Torpedo Maximum Velocity lowered from 20% to 15% per level
  • Racial Frigate Bonus to Explosion Velocity / Explosion Radius was removed

That offsets some of the torpedo buffs, but still leaves them better post-patch.

Two dreadnoughts also got changes today to help them be more competitive.

  • Phoenix:
    • CPU increased from 965 to 990
    • Power Grid increased from 500000 to 550000
  • Moros:
    • Low slots increased from 7 to 8
    • Mid slots decreased from 5 to 4

The Phoenix, the platform for XL torpedoes, also benefits from the above changes, which might help break it out of its very specialized applications.  We shall see if the slot changes helps the currently unloved Moros.

Then there is the Griffin Navy Issue, which is neither a dread nor a torpedo platform.  It just needed some help in its role as a short range ECM drone boat it seems, as CCP made the following changes:

  • Caldari Frigate bonuses (per skill level):
    • 10% bonus to ECM Drone jam duration
    • 20% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage
  • Misc. Bonus:
    • 85% penalty to drone damage
    • 50% penalty to drone hitpoints and drone control range
  • Attribute changes:
    • Drone Bandwidth increased from 5 to 25
    • Drone Capacity increased from 5 to 35

It got a bigger drone bay and the ability to launch more drones, but that 85% nerf to drone damage clearly means CCP doesn’t want people running it with combat drones.  ECM only please.  We’ll see if anybody ends up using the hull now.

And, finally, today’s patch slips in what I will call the “YZ9-F6 boson fix.”  Back in October the Imperium set a trap to slaughter PAPI caps and supers, and executed it correctly… only to have CCP’s code fail to deliver the damage it should have.  CCP acknowledged the issue, though there was little they could do after the fact.  But this line in the patch notes seems to indicate they have tried to remedy the issue for future fights.

Improved the stability of damage-over-time superweapons to make them more reliable at applying their full damage under heavy server loads.

Of course, somebody will have to trust CCP enough to try it before we’ll know if the fix was effective.  Who is going to gamble some titans on that?

Anyway, the patch notes are available and the update has been deployed.

A Smooth Slide into Shadowlands

I expressed some concern about the launch of the Shadowlands expansion in my post on Sunday, wondering if the server problems I had been seeing might impact the new experience.

But when it came down to it, at least on the Eldre’Thalas server, things seemed to go pretty smoothly.  (Though there were problems elsewhere I hear.)

I had read that the starting hook for the expansion hook would be out in front of the fountain before Stormwind Keep, so set myself up there early in the day.

The fountain, with some people beginning to gather

A little before 3pm local time, the hour of the launch for me, I logged in to gather with the other early birds to get right into things.  Ula had some free time as well, so we grouped up and waited around the fountain, which by that point was quite crowded.

The early crowd is ready

Moments after 3pm hit there was an announcement in the area by Highlord Darion Mograine.

Hear ye!

And then a death gate opened up before the fountain and people started piling in.

If all your friends jumped into a death gate, would you do it too?

It was through there to Icecrown and Bolvar Fordragon who had a few feats of strength for people to go through before he sent them off into the Maw to go find the people scooped up by Sylvanas in the pre-invasion.

So why am I dragging your little bits around the ceremony again?

And then it was into the Maw, the so-called crucible of the damned.

Welcome to The Maw

And it was a grim, dark hellscape with some of the tormented to fight and some of the regulars to find.  You end up with Jaina Proudmoore and Thrall to start with and end up on an exciting run through the place.  You find Anduin Wrynn and have to work to free him, and then Warchief Baine Bloodhoof.  The place is a torment and everybody wants to get out, and has been struggling to do so since they were taken.

Together you work your way to what my be a way out of the place, a portal that seems to respond only to your presence.  So they cover you while you escape.

Jaina, Baine, Anduin, and Thrall while you fiddle with the thing

And then, hey presto, you’re teleported to Orbios and your first achievement.

I fought the Maw and the Maw won…

There you meet the locals, talk about what is going on, get a tour of the place, and generally take your time, heedless of the fact that your recent pals are still being tormented.  But they have a way of doing things.  There is apparently enormous red tape in the after life.

From there you get sent off to Bastion to ingratiate yourself with the locals and run through their bright and shiny lands, the polar opposite of the Maw when it comes to style, and help them deal with their personal issues.

Seriously, Jaina, Thrall, Baine, and Anduin got themselves recaptured covering your escape, and were clearly unhappy about it.

Anduin is not at all happy

And now you’re farting around with really some of the most annoyingly chirpy mobs in the game who all sound like they’re in a cult if you start paying close attention to what they’re saying.  It is like being in the 70s.

Still, when in Rome… so you go along with the initiation, fight your personal demons manifested, relive past events in brief, and haul around their anima, the precious resource that drives things around there.

At first I thought they said “anime”

You get some armor, spar with some initiates, dust, tidy up, and attend some more lectures on the whole thing.

Ula and Vikund at another seminar

Doing all the fetch and carry and introspection gets you a level pretty quickly.  I was level 52 before the evening was out, and well on my way to 53.  The first person made it to 60, the new level cap, in just three hours.

But I gather that the level grind is not the big deal in Shadowlands.  Once you get to the level cap you have to pick a covenant and start earning your way into that as an alternate advancement method.  Something beyond just a rep grind so far as I have seen, though I haven’t looked too closely yet.

You get some new gear naturally, though I was surprised that it took a while for the first pieces to show up.  They were not in a hurry to replace everything you had in the first half dozen quests.  And some of it wasn’t good enough to replace what I had.  While I didn’t work very hard on the Heart of Azeroth in Battle for Azeroth, the first neck slot quest reward wasn’t cutting it as a replacement.

Heart of Azeroth wins today, even if it is cut off from its life force

Likewise, the big sword I got from Nathanos Blightcaller was better than the first weapons that came my way as drops or rewards.

My blade remains viable

And while the server seemed solid and I did not see any queues later in the evening when I logged back in, things were still a bit off.  I tried to group up with Ula again later on and we got stuck in different phases even though we were on the same quest.  We tried the dreaded “party sync” option, and while it did indeed get us onto the same quest again, we remained in different phases.

And perhaps some of the quests are meant to be solo, but it would be nice to have some indication of that.  Later, when we tried to add Skronk to the group, we had similar issues.  He couldn’t join the group at first, then he was in a different phase, and even after the part sync put us onto his quests, we still couldn’t all get into the same phase and visible to each other.

And that was on top of the usual factional annoyances.  This is one of the expansions where the Alliance and the Horde have identical experiences, so we’re all out there mixed together in Bastion.  But if a fellow Alliance member tags a mob, I can still join in and get credit, but if somebody from the Horde tags it, it is now gray to me and gets me no credit.  If we’re essentially fighting on the same side this round, maybe adjust that?  I don’t know.

But the advancement is going quickly enough that hopefully Bastion will be in the rear view mirror before too long.  It the sort of environment that brings up thoughts like, “I’m not saying Sylvanas is right, but looking at this place, I am not saying she is completely wrong either.”  Hell, one event involves a bunch of the locals sick of the routine and rising up against the status quo.  I had to go help put that down despite my sympathies.

Vikund ready to enforce conformity

But it is just a zone, and some zones you like and others you don’t, though the narrative in it feels like an extended intro that I kind of want to wrap up but never quite gets there.  Will I want to go through this with alts?

I will admit that the place looks pretty good.  A lot of work went into things.  I just have to get through Bastion and get back to rescuing people from the Maw, right?

Other first night posts:

 

Twenty Weeks of World War Bee

The plan was always we were going to move into Delve and Period Basis at some point.

-Vily, TEST Alliance SOTA

This past week on the CCP front, the company released the Monthly Economic Report for October which showed the extent of the destruction that occurred in Delve over the course of the five consecutive big fights early last month.

NPC Delve stands out on the map

Of the 45 trillion ISK destroyed that CCP recorded, 10.89 trillion ISK of that happened in Delve.  That is 24% of the destruction in the game, most of which occurred over a one week period.

The MER also showed how mineral prices have spiked to an all time high due to CCP’s starvation plan.

Oct 2020 – Economic Indices – Look at that mineral price spike at the end

CCP nerfing mining hard last month and nerfing ratting this month will have some impact, but with the World of Warcraft Shadowlands expansion landing later today, if CCP sees a dip in players it will likely be the call of Azeroth that did it.

Then there were two alliance announcements from the invaders, one from TEST and one from Pandemic Horde, which paint different pictures of their respective war goals.

Vily got up in front of TEST and trotted out the same vilification message that Goons are dumb and bad and their leaders needs to be driven from the game and the line members must repent of their bad choices.  Also, he wants to sit on our face, which I guess means he’s trying neg us or something?  Look, he said it, not me.  I just think of that as an incentive to keep fighting for as long as possible.

Also, as I pointed out in the quote at the top, TEST plans to come live in Delve and Period Basis which, again, is awkward given we’re still there.

TEST holdings in Orange

They do have all of Period Basis now, so I suppose they can start there.

Currently TEST lives primarily in Esoteria, Paragon Soul, and part of Feythabolis.

Current TEST home areas in Orange – Also, orange poop emoji?

Those areas will be up for grabs if they are really all in on Delve and not just making an excuse for their backfield home systems being attacked.  But the plans about avoiding our Keepstars and just smoking us out over time do not seem to have changed.

Then Gobbins posted an update for PanFam in their Discord on Saturday, after the Keepstar was anchored in T5ZI-S, announcing that “The Great Siege of 1DQ” had begun.  Also, they’re going to invade Fountain again, but this time from the south.  But primarily they want to burn “Rome” (1DQ), though they primarily interested in the faction Fortizars there, which were part of the treaty with GotG back in 2018, not the Keepstars.  They also want to blow up anything not secure behind the Helms Deep citadel in E3OI-U, after which they might be done.

Delve Front

In Delve there was much of the same going on as before.  As I mentioned earlier in the week, while ihubs continued to change hands, PAPI pushed hard to get the ihub T5ZI-S down, which opened the way for them to drop a Keepstar there.

PAPI Keepstar in T5ZI-S

The Imperium opted not to engage in another bloodbath to kill a Keepstar the way we did in early October, there being another one in the region already.  Without an opposition it went online successfully and put their new staging just one gate from 1DQ1-A.

Delve – Nov. 22, 2020 – Now with more annotations

What that they are… closer to us.  Maybe that means they will start attacking 1DQ1-A or that fights will be more likely.  The idea being floated that it cuts us off from Fountain though, I am not sure what that buys anybody.  But the war will get more real… or it won’t.

Other Theaters

Fountain.  I guess, given the above statements, PandaFam is invading there.  Reliving past glory?  Given that The Initiative retook a bunch of the ihubs and has since moved to join the Imperium foothold in Esoteria, there isn’t a lot stopping them.  Some theoretical capital ships are “trapped” there in Gobbins’ vision of things, but I’ve heard tales of trapped capitals before.  For a long time the same people were telling us the Imperium super and titan fleet was trapped in 93PI-4.  And then suddenly it wasn’t.

Querious remains an ongoing low intensity war over ihubs.  The invaders finally broke into “fake” Querious and took some of those ihubs after weeks of trying.  Now they have to hold them.

Querious – Nov. 22, 2020

And down in Esoteria the Imperium campaign has carried on.  The Bastion, Ferrata Victrix, and The Initiative have held on to their gains and even added another ihub to their record.

NW Esoteria – Nov. 22, 2020

If Vily’s SOTA speech is true, that group over there should be able to gain more ground if TEST is really moving to Delve.

My Participation

I went on a number of ops over the past week, but few ended up in a fight.  If the enemy shows up with double or more our numbers, we don’t feed them an easy victory.  The best skirmish was yesterday when a TEST Ragnarok warped off on its own and got dropped and killed by a dread bomb.  That drew a big response.

Behold their titan rage form

I bridged in with a Cerb fleet for support and, while too late for the titan kill, we managed to pick off a few hostiles, including an enemy FC, before heading home.  Screwing around in Delve just two jumps from our capital… well, there is a saying for that.

In the end, no losses for me, so my total remains as follows:

  • Ares interceptor – 11
  • Crusader interceptor – 5
  • Rokh battleship – 5
  • Atron entosis frigate – 5
  • Ferox battle cruiser – 3
  • Drake entosis battle cruiser – 3
  • Purifier stealth bomber – 2
  • Guardian logi – 2
  • Malediction interceptor – 2
  • Scalpel logi frigate – 2
  • Raven battleship – 1
  • Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
  • Gnosis ratting battlecruiser – 1
  • Scimitar logi – 1
  • Bifrost entosis command destroyer – 1
  • Cormorant destroyer – 1
  • Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
  • Sigil entosis industrial – 1
  • Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1

Other Items

The EVE NT Alliance Tournament wrapped up on Sunday, with the final match up being Templis CALSF versus Warlords of the Deep.  That ended up with Templis CALSF winning the final best of five matches with three straight victories.  They lost no matches and came out on top.

And then there was the weekly peak concurrent user count, which again happened on Saturday rather than Sunday, likely due to the Keepstar in T5ZI-S anchoring right at prime time, which had about 6,000 of us sitting around waiting for the other side to jump into us.  No fight occurred, but lots of us logged on.

  • 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)

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