A Look into May 2023 Destruction in EVE Online

The EVE Online Monthly Economic Report for May 2023 landed earlier this week, and for once I was ready for it.  For those interested in the economy side of things, the following links are a good start.  You can see how much impact the anniversary events had on the economy.

• CCP – May 2023 Monthly Economic Report
• CCP – May 2023 MER Forum Thread
• Reddit – May 2023 MER Thread

EVE Online nerds harder

I, on the other hand, am going to stick to the killdump.csv file… though I will quickly point out that a lot of ISK was dumped into the game in May due to the anniversary events, largely through commodity redemption, though the Active ISK Delta also shows that a lot of people logged in dormant accounts to collect prizes.

May 2023 ISK balance

But did all that ISK generation mean that more people were playing and, more importantly, leading to more things being blown up?

The short answer is: no.

There was a drop in explosions, with May ringing in 39 trillion ISK in destruction with 403,900 hulls destroyed, a small dip from the 409,905 seen in April.  That made the kills per day metric I am tracking drop down to 13,028.03 kills per day in May.  Here is the year so far:

• January – 13,729.96 kills per day
• February – 14,307.75 kills per day
• March – 14,878.67 kills per day
• April – 13,663.50 kills per day
• May – 13,028.03 kills per day

That makes May the low month of the year so far, though we have yet to enter the summer doldrums, so give it time.  It remains to be seen if this month’s Viridian expansion can stem that seeming annual tide.  Still, the chart I have been keeping shows 2023 is keeping ahead of 2022’s pace.

Avg losses per day, 2020 through May 2023

(For past years, I did monthly stats from 2020 forward here.)

As for what was blown up, let’s get into numbers, starting with the Top 20 hull types destroyed.

Type	Count
Capsule	114,308
Frigate	66,384
Cruiser	33,243
Destroyer	24,672
Shuttle	22,229
Corvette	16,909
Combat Battlecruiser	14,536
Heavy Assault Cruiser	10,284
Mobile Tractor Unit	10,226
Hauler	8,529
Interdictor	8,288
Battleship	7,259
Interceptor	6,785
Assault Frigate	5,271
Strategic Cruiser	5,112
Stealth Bomber	4,387
Mobile Warp Disruptor	4,187
Mining Barge	4,097
Covert Ops	4,079
Tactical Destroyer	3,951

This is becoming a list of the usual suspects, with just the numbers changing every month, though I will note that capsules were not part of the 6K reduction in kills in May, as there were almost 2K more capsule kills than in April.

When broken out by specific hull types, the top 20 most destroyed are:

Hull	Count
Capsule	113,293
Venture	11,312
Mobile Tractor Unit	9,781
Heron	9,750
Ibis	7,341
Caldari Shuttle	6,133
Amarr Shuttle	6,108
Ishtar	5,923
Gallente Shuttle	5,751
Vexor	5,021
Caracal	4,867
Velator	4,238
Sabre	4,174
Catalyst	3,577
Atron	3,136
Gnosis	3,133
Thrasher	3,115
Tristan	3,079
Minmatar Shuttle	3,066
Kikimora	2,930

As always, capsules top the list, though somebody asked me in an IM last month why the number of capsules are lower on this chart.  The reason is that there are two different capsule types.  Those of us who bought the 10th Anniversary and redeemed the Mystery Code (and don’t get me started on the promise versus delivery on that, though we did get something from it five years back) have Capsule – Genolution ‘Auroral’ 197-variant, instead of the standard issue capsule, which is shiny and gold.  1,015 of those were destroyed in May.

Just a gold capsule in the bubbles

On the flip side of the top numbers, hulls that were blown up exactly once… minus the fighter groups that were blown up just once… were:

Hull	Count
AIR Civilian Astero	1
Angel Control Tower Medium	1
Angel Small Artillery Battery	1
Bestla	1
Blood Energy Neutralizing Battery	1
Blood Small Pulse Laser Battery	1
Caiman	1
Component Assembly Array	1
Compression Array	1
Dark Blood Control Tower	1
Dark Blood Control Tower Small	1
Domination Control Tower	1
Drone Assembly Array	1
Drug Lab	1
Equipment Assembly Array	1
Erebus	1
Guristas Spatial Destabilization Battery	1
Large AutoCannon Battery	1
Miasmos Amastris Edition	1
Minmatar Listening Outpost	1
Reprocessing Array	1
Research Laboratory	1
Serpentis Control Tower	1
Serpentis Warp Scrambling Battery	1
Shadow Large Railgun Battery	1
Shadow Medium Railgun Battery	1
Shadow Sensor Dampening Battery	1
Tiamat	1
True Sansha Control Tower Medium	1
True Sansha Control Tower Small	1
True Sansha Large Beam Laser Battery	1

Sure, the Erebus is a nice kill, and the Caiman is a faction dreadnought, so pricey, but the big kills are the Bestla and the Tiamat, which are both alliance tournament ships. (The kills are linked in the chart.)  That appears, according to zKillboard, to be the first Bestela destroyed in game.  I am surprised there wasn’t a thread on r/eve about it.

Otherwise, we are seeing the long, ongoing attrition of faction POS modules.

I was puzzled for a bit by the AIR Civilian Astero, since zKillboard shows tons of those being blown up by NPCs in some mysterious part of space, but not being counted towards the totals, which sounds like CCP stuff going on.  I don’t know what the ship is and I don’t know where that space is.

But one of those ships got loose and was blown up in low sec in the Old Man’s Star system.  So that is a bit of a mystery.

Then I want to account for how much value these losses represent. So the top 20 hulls by total value of all losses are:

Hull	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
Capsule	113,293	2,998.93 billion	26.47 million
Tengu	2,036	1,652.31 billion	811.55 million
Vargur	770	1,649.22 billion	2,141.85 million
Paladin	838	1,545.16 billion	1843.87 million
Ishtar	5,923	1,338.01 billion	225.90 million
Loki	1,701	1,290.18 billion	758.48 million
Golem	442	914.14 billion	2,068.20 million
Revelation	163	847.92 billion	5201.97 million
Gila	1,697	758.29 billion	446.84 million
Praxis	2,595	695.37 billion	267.96 million
Kronos	275	525.77 billion	1911.90 million
Proteus	697	494.30 billion	709.18 million
Astero	2,643	479.22 billion	181.32 million
Legion	678	476.14 billion	702.28 million
Tempest Fleet Issue	898	450.72 billion	501.92 million
Athanor	213	448.91 billion	2107.57 million
Orca	274	445.97 billion	1627.63 million
Naglfar	106	409.40 billion	3,862.30 million
Nestor	172	398.33 billion	2,315.87 million
Fortizar	24	320.28 billion	1,3345.03 million

This is at least a chart that changes a bit every month, though capsules are still hanging out at the top based on both sheer numbers and, given the average ISK value per loss, the number of implants we shove in our skulls.  An empty pod is just a 10K ISK loss, so there were a lot of implants in play.

Otherwise, that list is dominated by expensive hulls, like marauders, and things that were lost in large quantities, like capsules and Ishtars.

But when we pivot and look at the top 20 by ISK value per loss, we get into individually expensive ships.

Hull	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
Erebus	1	97.97 billion	97.97 billion
Avatar	2	154.78 billion	77.39 billion
Ragnarok	2	152.67 billion	76.33 billion
Hel	7	190.90 billion	27.27 billion
Nyx	9	232.43 billion	25.83 billion
Aeon	2	38.41 billion	19.21 billion
Fortizar	24	320.28 billion	13.35 billion
Ark	14	164.09 billion	11.72 billion
Tatara	9	104.55 billion	11.62 billion
Rhea	12	121.65 billion	10.14 billion
Anshar	5	50.18 billion	10.04 billion
Nomad	3	29.88 billion	9.96 billion
Tiamat	1	8.83 billion	8.83 billion
Azbel	19	141.28 billion	7.44 billion
Rorqual	42	232.50 billion	5.54 billion
Moros	30	165.30 billion	5.51 billion
Revelation	163	847.92 billion	5.20 billion
Marshal	16	72.40 billion	4.52 billion
Bowhead	28	120.54 billion	4.30 billion
Lif	4	16.06 billion	4.02 billion

It is probably no mystery why titans and super carriers are at the top of that list.  The top 20 is almost all capital ships and structures.

The exception is the Marshall, the CONCORD black ops battleship, which are very pricey to lose, and that Tiamat I linked to in the “killed just once” chart above.  That Tiamat is very under valued I suspect.  And the Bestla, the other Alliance tournament ship I listed, is also likely very under valued, as CCP only put a 2.45 billion ISK value on the loss.

On to the region losses, I am going to consolidate the two charts into one in the interest of linear space in the post.

Region	Sum of ISK lost	Region	Count
Metropolis	2.02 trillion	The Forge	23,615
The Forge	1.95 trillion	The Citadel	22,459
Sinq Laison	1.43 trillion	Essence	18,024
The Citadel	1.36 trillion	Pochven	17,959
Delve	1.29 trillion	Placid	15,073
Pochven	1.21 trillion	Genesis	14,715
Pure Blind	1.14 trillion	Pure Blind	14,195
Essence	1.10 trillion	Sinq Laison	13,419
Devoid	1.06 trillion	Delve	12,866
Vale of the Silent	1.04 trillion	Lonetrek	12,129

For ISK lost, Metropolis leads the way, while for total loss count it is The Forge.  That Metropolis doesn’t even make the top ten (it is in 15th position with 7,925 kills) means that something expensive happened there.

Likewise, for solar systems, I am also going to combine the two charts into one.  I am also including the region with the system, since I certainly don’t remember where most systems are.

System	Region	Sum of ISK Lost	System	Region	Count
Turnur	Metropolis	972.24 billion	Ahbazon	Genesis	12,687
Jita	The Forge	847.08 billion	Jita	The Forge	10,918
Ahbazon	Genesis	679.33 billion	Tama	The Citadel	10,420
Gheth	Devoid	502.76 billion	Kourmonen	The Bleak Lands	6,234
Y-1918	Branch	498.43 billion	Fliet	Essence	5,213
Old Man Star	Essence	459.98 billion	Rancer	Sinq Laison	4,594
WLF-D3	Venal	356.47 billion	Heydieles	Essence	4,288
Tama	The Citadel	355.60 billion	Uitra	The Forge	3,324
Balle	Sinq Laison	286.34 billion	C4C-Z4	Fade	3,094
X47L-Q	Pure Blind	229.56 billion	MJ-5F9	Perrigen Falls	3,079

That actually gives some insight when combined with the regional chart.  For example, we know where almost half of the destruction in Metropolis took place.  Turnur is a Faction Warfare system and it looks like Amarr and Minmatar forces went at it hard mid-May.  That battle even shows up on the battles HTML that CCP provides.

The big battle in Turnur

I had to fiddle with hue and saturation to get that color because by default it is on an orange background that makes it practically unreadable.  But that gives you the date, so you can make a battle report if you want to see what went on that day.  Over on Reddit there is an image of the dread brawl that broke out.

What I would like to be able to do is break out details for destruction for the different security bands as a data chart, the way CCP includes something like that in the MER.

Destruction by Security Band over Time

I like that chart, but I would like to be able to record the monthly details.  The killdump.csv doesn’t include the sec value for the systems, just the system names and IDs, and I am in no mood to build a mapping table just to extract that information.

Over at TNG Noisy has been looking at destruction by security band by pulling data from DOTLAN EVE Maps.  I could do that too I suppose, but that is a different data set and I would like to keep on an apples to apples comparison.

Ideally CCP would just add a sec status column to the killdump.csv file, but that is probably low on their list with an expansion coming out soon.  Maybe some day.

Finally, in searching for a bonus chart, I figured I could look at the top ten corporations for kills and losses.

Sorting by total ISK lost by corp, these are the top ten.

Corp	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
State War Academy	9,067	382.98 billion	42.24 million
Pandemic Horde Inc.	3,914	292.46 billion	74.72 million
Scan Stakan	4,698	269.99 billion	57.47 million
Stardust-Guardian	1,241	262.66 billion	211.65 million
ChuangShi	2,384	260.01 billion	109.07 million
KarmaFleet	2,669	249.40 billion	93.44 million
Singularity Expedition Services	518	236.47 billion	456.51 million
School of Applied Knowledge	6,457	227.47 billion	35.23 million
Federal Navy Academy	4,459	216.20 billion	48.49 million
Science and Trade Institute	6,175	213.81 billion	34.63 million

At the top of the list is the State War Academy, the default Caldari NPC corporation, which currently has 2,667,567 members.  The interesting thing I suppose is that the top corps are the default corps for each of the NPC empires.  In fact, the School of Applied Knowledge, the next NPC corp, is ALSO a Caldari corp.

You have to get to the Federal Navy Academy to get to the first Gallente NPC corp… and after that is the Science and Trade Institute, another Caldari NPC corp.

You do see the biggest Pandemic Horde and Goonswarm corps on the list.  Lots of players in those.  Stardust-Guardian and ChuangShi are in Fraternity, to round that out.

Scan Stakan is a Pochven corp, and an active one at that.

Now, if you flip that chart and show the top ten corps when it comes to ISK per loss, you get a completely different set.

Corp	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
MSc Corporation	1	21.04 billion	21.04 billion
Golden Goose Industies	1	15.80 billion	15.80 billion
Dracarys Industry	1	15.36 billion	15.36 billion
840 MLG QUADTURBO 6000 EMPIRE ALLIANCE TRIRELOADED	2	27.29 billion	13.64 billion
Nevyn’s Corporation	1	12.92 billion	12.92 billion
White Stallion Mining and salvaging	1	12.45 billion	12.45 billion
Blue Horizons Holding	1	11.52 billion	11.52 billion
The one who raised the fire	1	11.28 billion	11.28 billion
Bilibili is a good place	1	11.21 billion	11.21 billion
Puppet-Masters	1	10.05 billion	10.05 billion

A lot of single losses on that list.

1. MSc Corporation is just one person who lost a Tatara in Genesis
2. Golden Goose Industies, a 3 pilot corp, lost a Bowhead in Devoid
3. Dracarys Industry lost an Obelisk in Khanid
4. The now closed 840 MLG QUADTURBO 6000 EMPIRE ALLIANCE TRIRELOADED lost a Hel in Etherium Reach and a pod elsewhere
5. Nevyn’s Corporation, which has 4 pilots, also lost a Bowhead in Devoid
6. The 10 pilot White Stallion Mining and salvaging lost a Tatara in Domain
7. Blue Horizons Holding, a one person corp, lost a Fortizar in Domain
8. The one who raised the fire lost an Ark in Molden Heath
9. Bilibili is a good place, a 15 pilot corp, lost a Charon in Metropolis
10. Puppet-Masters, a 2 pilot corp, lost a Rhea in Sinq Laison

Several of those are just very small corps either trying to avoid war decs as alts (two of those are affiliated with larger alliances) or who tried to put up a solo structure only to find that things don’t end well for structures held by one person.

And so it goes.  If you want to know how your corp did in May 2023 I can probably pull those stats pretty easily.

This month we will have the Viridian expansion.  How that will impact destruction remains to be seen.

The Return of the Mystery Code

The Mystery Code is back.

Yes, that Mystery Code Kronk

Being away for a week… literally at sea for several days with only some extremely slow satellite base WiFi which would barely load the main Google page when the whole ship was awake and trying to use it… means I feel there is some catching up to do.  Everything that posted last week, save for yesterday’s post that I wrote on my iPad at LAX while waiting for our flight home, was written in advance and scheduled to post.  But there are things I would have posted about last week, had I been home, if only to mark that they happened.  There is never a completely dead week.

Anyway, the first, and probably easiest item on the list, is the return of the Mystery Code.

The Mystery Code was part of the EVE Online Second Decade Collector’s Edition package that CCP put out back in 2013 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the game.

All the stuff

A number of things were included with that, including a coffee table book, a CD of some of the well known sound track pieces played by the Icelandic  Symphony Orchestra, and a copy of the board game that CCP created to help get funding rolling for their crazy internet spaceship plans, a Rifter shaped USB hub, and that little black card with the title “Collector’s Edition Mystery Code.”

The Mystery Code Card

I still have the card from one of the two Collector’s Editions I ended up with.  (I bought one, then CCP later gave me another one via a PR company they were using on the idea that a) I would write about it and b) that would make some amount of difference in the world.  I gave away the second Mystery Code in a screen shot contest.)  I did not have to dig too deep in my office to find it.

Mystery Code Card

The idea of the Mystery Code was that people who shelled out a hundred bucks or more for this collection of fluff and nostalgia would have something special that would set them apart going forward.  Initially it got you a PLEX (back before the 500 for 1 split), some cosmetic items, and a special ship in the then upcoming EVE Valkyrie.  But the idea was that there would be other exclusive items available to Mystery Code holders going forward.

Unfortunately, CCP didn’t really set expectations as to how often we could expect rewards or what they might be.  I guess that is the “mystery” aspect of it all, even though they tried to demystify it in a blog post. They key quote from that I suppose is this tidbit:

This is just the beginning of what the Mystery Code will unlock. In the future, whenever we have big things happening—not just across the EVE Universe but across all CCP games—you will find a Mystery Code element to enjoy.

There’s much more planned we can’t discuss right now, but you can rest assured that as we continue our journey into the Second Decade with you, the Mystery Code will be your perfect traveling companion.

Much more planned.  There isn’t a specific promise of regular intervals, but it isn’t hard to read into that a potential bounty beyond what we have actually received so far.

This has led to a regularly recurring series of posts over on Reddit over the years about what the hell happened to the Mystery Code.  As noted in this thread, we have received a couple of items since, but the Mystery Code has otherwise remained somewhat aloof and we haven’t seen anything show up for a few years at this point, back in February 2015.

With the 15 year anniversary of EVE Online this year there was some restrained hope that we might see a revival of the Mystery Code, but with layoffs and restructuring and general changes at CCP there was also speculation that the company might not even have the capability of handing out goodies to those holding the Mystery Code.  Its days seems well in the past.

And then, as I was swilling Pacificos at Mauricio’s in Puerto Vallarta, CCP broke its years long silence on the Mystery Code and gave us something.  We got:

• 1x Men’s SARO ‘Black Troop’ Combat Suit
• 1x Women’s SARO ‘Black Troop’ Combat Suit
• 1x Pacifier SARO ‘Black Troop’ SKIN (Permanent)
• 1x Enforcer SARO ‘Black Troop’ SKIN (Permanent)
• 1x Monitor SARO ‘Black Troop’ SKIN (Permanent)
• 1x Marshal SARO ‘Black Troop’ SKIN (Permanent)

The cosmetic combat suits are nice I guess, if you like that sort of thing.  At least the top half of them show up in your portrait in-game.  But the SKINs, which are black and white police models with what appears to be red and blue flashing lights… those are very nice.  I am all over that.

Mystery Code SKINs and outfits

As soon as I was able to log in after my return home the whole set was there for me waiting to be redeemed.

Ready to claim

If you have a Mystery Code you have to redeem these items within 90 days or they will disappear.  Don’t let this linger, grab them soon.

So there we go, the Mystery Code is still alive and has delivered after a long hiatus.

Now, of course, the timer starts again.  I expect that at some point before next Fanfest a thread or two will pop up on Reddit wondering if CCP will ever give Mystery Code holders something else.

Show Me The Planets Contest Results

I realized at some point late yesterday afternoon that I had a contest to wrap up today.  It has been a busy week.  Winners had to be picked, prizes arranged, and a post had to be written.

The first two were relatively manageable when compared to the third.  I always forget what a minor pain it is to move things from email to my hard drive and then back up into WordPress while making sure I do not lose anything along the way.   You would be surprised at the number of ways you can mess that up when shepherding a pile pictures along the way.

In the end there were 43 images submitted by 19 different people.  Thank you all for participating!  Here is the list of those who sent in pictures, in order of when I received them.

• Alikchi
• Ripard Teg / Jester (who also kindly linked to the contest from his site)
• Robyn Aurilen
• Jack Holt
• Kirith Kodachi
• Mark726 of EVE Travel
• Hull Nightstar
• Yulian McElroy
• Cheradenine Harper of Diaries of a Space Noob
• Anna Karhunen
• Feiryred
• Ty Delaney
• Breedi
• Nevrac
• Kara Kardan
• Rofelia Amphal
• Duncan Ringill
• Nycterix
• Dunarian Ozran

All of you adhered to the rules, so far as I can tell, and a good percentage of you managed to follow the instructions.  I did not penalize anybody in any way because they didn’t rename their screen shots so I could identify the owner or because they decided to branch out to file formats beyond .jpg and .png.

I did save off all entries that were not JPEG into that format, just for the sake of size.  Some of you are running at 2560×1440, which makes for a sizable .png file.  I do not believe that picture quality was compromised in anyway way.

I was interested to see what people would choose to submit.  Some of you went right to the heart of the matter.  I have a number of entries that are just planets.  Others chose screen shots where planets were a looming presence, watching over our actions in space.  And they do flavor the game and give a sense of scale to what we are doing.  Have you seen a titan next to a planet or a moon?  It is so tiny that you can zoom out until it disappears and the planet will barely have changed size on your screen at all.

One of my favorite early EVE screen shots

So it is time to get to the winners, and all the entries, right after the cut.

Show Me The Planets Contest Reminder

My contest to give away a Mystery Code from the EVE Online Second Decade Collector’s Edition has just a few more days to run.  You can find the full rules and other details here, but in brief, you have until Saturday to enter.

The latest entry I have is from Kirith Kodachi, and it really puts the emphasis on showing me the planet.

State Protectorate station over Eha III

So far I have entries from:

• Alikchi
• Ripard Teg/Jester
• Robyn Aurilen
• Jack Holt
• Kirith Kodachi

Which means that the field of competition is not all that big.  If you enter now, the range of choices is still small enough that you could easily stand out and win… with the right screen shot.

I am still waiting to hear from Mark726 of the EVE Travel blog who, the last I heard, was paralyzed by choice in attempting to narrow his options down to just three entries.

@alikchialeika @wilhelm2451 what will I choose, what WILL I choose?! #somanyoptions

— WebSpaceships (@webspaceships) February 18, 2014

Show Me the Planets Contest – First Entry

So Alikchi sent me a screen shot less than 15 minutes after yesterday’s contest announcement went up, giving him at least the “firsties” honor.  It was a shot ofa Moros blazing away during the “Shoot Blues, Tell Vile Rat” op in UMI-KK in September of 2012.  It even comes with a kill mail to mark the eventual death of the dreadnaught during the event.

Moros with guns lit

I always post the first entry I get, both to prove that somebody actually entered and to give people something of an “over/under” measure when it comes to their potential entries.  This is now the benchmark.  You should ask yourself if your entry is better than this one.

An EVE Online Screen Shot Contest – Show Me the Planets!

I’ve been down this road before.

I have something special to give away.  Here, somewhere on my desk, is a Mystery Code from the EVE Online Second Decade Collector’s Edition.

Not at all like my desk

CCP gave me a copy, for free, after I had already purchased one for myself.  I gave away some of the bits and pieces to friends, but I held back the Mystery Code because I wanted to have a contest.

According to the CCP web site, the Mystery Code :will grant owners special benefits related to future CCP products and events” including:

• 1 x PLEX
• New and exclusive “Phanca” Cybernetic Arm
• Exclusive “Templar MkII Prototype Fighter” for EVE: Valkyrie
• More Mystery Code content will be announced soon!

Essentially it sounds like your account will be flagged to get some additional goodies at some future date.  And hey, a PLEX.  Gotta love that.

So I am having yet another screen shot contest.

How To Enter

Take a screen shot or dig through your old EVE Online screen shots.  The only restriction is that the shot must have a planet or a moon somewhere in view.  A spherical battles tation large enough to be mistaken for a moon is an acceptable substitute.  Example shot:

Buzzard and a Planet

More examples here.

You don’t have to have space ships or stations or titans or nebulae to be considered… but I can’t say that such things won’t help your chances.  Just have a planet or a moon.

Rename that screen shot to something I can associate with you.  Your character name would be good.  Append a digit if you are sending more than one picture.

Send your screen shot(s) to wilhelm2451 [at] yahoo [dot] com with the following information:

Your in-game character name:

A brief description of the picture: (ship types pictured please, other details if you can, actual system/planet would be awesome)

Attribution information: (Who should I say took the shot, link to your blog, corp, MySpace page, whatever)

See, simple.

Now for the fine print.

The Rules

A little less simple.

Entries must be your own screen shots.  Use of promotional material from CCP will disqualify you immediately.  We’ve all seen them…  well, I’ve seen them because I really like pictures of spaceships…  so don’t bother.  And the internet has tools for searching on that sort of thing… don’t make me get out the tools!

Use of the work of other people without the express written consent of Major League Baseball… or the person… is also forbidden.  Implied oral consent isn’t good enough.   Just be good and use your own screen shots, okay?

If I have already linked to or posted a screen shot of yours on EVE Online Pictures, you may not submit it for this contest.  Sorry.

You may enter up to three screen shots.

You must submit your entry via email to wilhelm2451 [at] yahoo [dot] com.  The subject of the email should say something like “EVE Online Contest” so I can find it easily in the spam folder if Yahoo happens to have taken a dislike to you, your domain, or your country.

You can send me a link to your entry via email if you prefer, but your entry should be obvious from the link.  If you send me a link to your EVE album in  Imgur or Flickr or whatever, I’ll probably browse through it, but I won’t pick an entry for you.

Your picture should be in .jpg or .png format.  If you send me a .bmp, I will likely convert it to one of those formats before posting it.  If you send me a picture in a format that PaintShop Pro cannot open or a corrupted image, I will send you a notification that your entry is invalid.

You can ask for clarifications or further information in the comments section following this post, but all entries must be sent via email to the address specified.

You must submit your entry Noon Pacific Time of Saturday, March 1st, 2014.  That will be 3pm Eastern Time or  8pm (20:00) UTC. which happens to also be in-game time in EVE Online.

If you are a winner, the Mystery Code will be sent via email to the address you used to enter the contest.   If you really, really want the physical card, I will drop it in the mail to if you provide an address.

The code and card are unused, but I make offer no warranty on what CCP will actually give you when you enter the code.  I just believe what the web site tells me.  There is a rumor that, if you enter a Mystery Code, you also consent to let CCP Guard sleep on your couch if he happens to be in town.

The winner will be announced in a post on Firday, March 7th, 2014.  The winning screen shots will be posted on this blog.  All screen shots submitted will, over time, be posted, with attribution, on EVE Online Pictures.  Unless your picture is crap.  I won’t be posting crap.  Don’t send me crap.

A second place prize of 100,000,000 ISK will be awarded to the runner up in the contest if there are at least 10 individuals entered.  I reserve the right, at my discretion, to toss some ISK to pilots submitting other worthy entries.  Not as much ISK as second place, but some ISK is better than none, right?

While I may consult with others to help winnow down the field of entrants, the winner will be decided by me and me alone.

Any questions, ambiguity, or disputes will be resolved by me alone and all decisions will be final.  There is no appeals process.

The EVE Online Second Decade Collector’s Edition

A couple weeks back Jeff of Lewis PR dropped me a note asking me if I wanted a free copy of the EVE Online Second Decade Collector’s Edition.

I naturally assumed that this was some sort of scam because, EVE Online.  Right?  I ignored it.

Trooper that he is, Jeff persisted in trying to give me something for free, and around the third note from him I finally responded with my suspicion that this was a scam.  By that point I had looked up the company, which turned out to be up the freeway in SF and did, according to its web site, represent CCP.

He said that suspicion was not an uncommon reaction.  Once we got on the same wavelength he got my address and the very next day a big box dropped on my doorstep containing the whole big thing.  It is heavy.

All the stuff

And it is heavy because it has a ton of stuff in it.  The first things you see are the big things, all nicely tucked into the box.  There is the model of the Rifter, probably the most recognizable ship in the New Eden, which is also a USB hub.  I am not sure how many people will actually use their Rifter model as a hub… just having the Rifter model itself seemed like enough for me… but you have that option.  Me, I am leaving my free of cables so I can run around the house with it and strafe the cats when the situation calls for it.  (I like that the official YouTube video about the USB Rifter got about a third as many views as the video of somebody “flying” their Rifter through the CCP offices.)

There is also a copy The Danger Game, which was the first product that CCP created.  I am not sure what I can really say about this, except that this was the first product CCP shipped, and it brought in the money to bankroll EVE Online.  So it has that going for it.  There is a fuller story narrated by CCP Guard on YouTube.

And then there is the the book, EVE – Into the Second Decade.

This is the meat of the “big” items in the box.  Coming in at just over 190 pages, it describes the birth and evolution of the game EVE Online.  While heavier on illustrations than details, it does take a pretty extensive look at the first decade of EVE Online.  It is coffee table book comparable to the 10 year celebration tome that SOE put out to celebrate 10 years of EverQuest.

The Books Compared

The books are quite similar as the both describe the foundations, the launch, and the arc and developments of the respective games, leading looks forward to the future, with EverQuest Next figuring in one and DUST 514 in the other.  Where the EVE volume differs is how much more focused it on the players.  There are little tidbits that mention things like Hulkageddon, Burn Jita, and the boot.ini episode.  That is sort of like SOE bringing up Planes of Power bugs, the Mystere incident, and Fansy the famous bard as part of their memories of EverQuest, something that just wouldn’t happen.

And when the chapter about the Incarna expansion hits… entitled The Long Walk… CCP is pretty clear that the player base was in revolt.  The follow on chapter that picks up the story… after a detour into DUST 514, is Redemption Arc.

Add in the guest essays from various people in and around the game and this is something to have, not a detailed history but a trail of images, impressions, and emotions that really evoke a sense of connection to the game.  Good stuff.  The best of the big items and something I really wanted.

And then there is the little box within the big box.

The first thing in the little box is the music from the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra’s performance of some of the music from EVE Online from Fanfest back in April.  I missed this performance because, like so many CCP events, it happened while I was at work, but I have been dying to hear it.  So now I have a new twist on a series of tracks that are among the most played on my iPod.  The songs on the CD are:

• Stellar Shadows
• Below the Asteroids
• Shifting the Balance of Power
• Rose of Victory
• I Saw Your Ship
• All Which Was Lost
• A Surplus of Rare Artifacts
• It Ends Here
• The Jovian Front
• Smoke from Down Below
• Merchants and Looters

Tucked in around the the music CD are the game code cards.  There is one for EVE Online, the contents of which CCP has detailed on their site.  Implants, cosmetics, a special ship and some blueprints come with the code.

The Nefantar Thrasher was pre-order only, sorry

Then there is a code for DUST 514, which is part of the EVE Online universe… though not a part in which I participate.

There is a 60 Day new account code that you can give to a friend… or use to create another alt.

And then there is the Collector’s Edition Mystery Code which was… for a while… a mystery.  Then they announced some of the items, which included a PLEX, more in-game cosmetics, a special ship in the upcoming EVE Valkyrie (which looks a lot like one of the EVE Online drones), and some of what they call in-game collectables.

Templar Fighter

I think that, like some of the entries in the collector’s edition book, the in-game collectables give some insight to how CCP views the game and the players.  They could have dropped in a bunch of things that celebrated game milestones like expansions and such.  Instead, they are focused on player achievements.  There is a set of tokens for each of the alliance tournaments celebrating the winner.  And there are a bunch of one-off items, like ticket stubs for the premier of Clear Skies.

Premier of “Clear Skies”

Others include notable events from the history of the game as created by the players.

A Piece of Steve

First Player Station

Sov Bill Reminder

The end of Band of Brothers

Guiding Hands Social Club

Tournament Winners

These are actual in-game items.  They do not do anything within the game, but you can sell them, trade them, or store them away for another day.  Like the implants and other in-game items you get with the collector’s edition, they are not locked down to your account.  You are free to do with them as you please.  I have seen the “golden pod” implant, which goes in a special socket and survives clone jumps and being podded, on the market for several billion ISK.

So what to make of all of this stuff.

If you are a hard core EVE Online player… well… you probably already own a copy of this.  But if you somehow missed it, you can still get one via the EVE Store or Amazon.com.  The list price is $150, but Amazon has had it available as a flash sale for as low as $99 at some points.

Is it worth the price?  Hard to say.  For me, yes.  I wanted the book and the CD, which are probably worth at least $45 right there.  Add in the PLEX and a substantial bit of the cost is covered by tangible items of value.  I am not sure what I would have paid for a Rifter model… I would have paid quite a bit for the LEGO Rifter, which gets a mention in the book… and The Danger Game isn’t much of a draw for me.  And the rest is digital, stuff made of ones and zeroes and accessible to me only as pixels on a screen.

It was worth it to me.

At this point you are probably thinking, “Well of course it was worth it to you, you got the damn collector’s edition for free!”

Well, I did get a copy for free.  But I had already pre-ordered the whole thing before it came out.  So I speak from the perspective of somebody justifying their expense, not as somebody who got something expensive for free.  Or something.  I paid for a copy and am content with that.

Collector’s editions always carry some controversy.  If you don’t like them, they can seem a naked cash grab.  If you do like them, they can be a way to own something extra, something special, from a game you enjoy.  I can go either way on the topic, depending on the game and what is being offered.

Now I have to figure out what to do with this other copy of the collector’s edition.  I promised I wouldn’t turn around and sell it on eBay.  No fun in that anyway.  I think bits of it might serve as prizes for a contest.  Maybe something after the holidays, when things settle down a bit.

I already know somebody who is interested in the USB Rifter.  I owe him for some home made salsa.