Cloud Imperium Makes $2 Million On The First Day Of Star Citizen's Alpha 4.0

Work was crazy this week and limited my blogging. But I had to make note of an event that occurred in Star Citizen: the launch of Alpha 4.0 yesterday.

Daily Sales From The Roberts Space Industries Website

In a Letter from the Chairman, Cloud Imperium founder and CEO Chris Roberts spelled out exactly what the launch looked like.

After a much longer than anticipated development process, what was teased in 2019 becomes a reality for all players when we launch Star Citizen Alpha 4.0 to the live servers, as part of what we are calling the 4.0 Preview.  

For the first time in our history, we will run 2 live releases in parallel, each with their own progress and persistence. This means you'll have the unique opportunity to choose which version you want to dive into, at least for a little while. At this stage, we both want and need the high traffic of a Live release to thoroughly test Server Meshing and the newly refactored systems that rely on it as they go through their final paces. We acknowledge that we did not have time to get all the mission types working before our holiday break, which is why we have decided to temporarily support two parallel Live tracks: Alpha 3.24.3 will remain available, so you can play the missions and engage in game loops that are not working to our new playability standards in 4.0. Meanwhile, the 4.0 Preview will also be accessible from your launcher as a second Live option. If you are not interested in previewing 4.0, you can simply select Alpha 3.24.3 from the dropdown and continue enjoying the current live build.  

This may feel like our usual PTU process, but there is one key difference: by running both builds on the Live environment, we can take steps to ensure that your progress on 4.0 will carry over. Our goal is for anything you do and earn in the 4.0 Preview to persist without any further wipes—unless something major happens, though we do not anticipate that.

That said, it's important to note that progress made in Alpha 3.24.3 will remain tied to that version and will not transfer to 4.0. This allows us to maintain a clean slate for the new systems coming online in the 4.0 Preview, ensuring a consistent and stable environment as we look to deprecate 3.24.3 in the new year.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much of a launch yesterday was. But one thing I know is CIG always runs a ship sale when a patch launches. Back in October I thought CIG removed a ship sale. Looking back I have the feeling Alpha 4.0 was supposed to release in the middle of October a week before CitizenCon.

With the launch of Alpha 4.0 came a 17-ship sale in the cash shop. And on the first day CIG brought in $1,988,088. As of the time of the screenshot at the beginning of the post, cash shop revenue was up to $111.5 million for 2024, or $6.1 million short of 2023's sales. With 10 days to go, CIG still has an outside shot of matching last year's total.

I should add one additional piece of information from the Letter to the Chairman. Chris Roberts revealed the servers hosted 32 million hours of play time this year. Converting to average concurrent users, the Star Citizen servers averaged 3700 players flying or running around at any time. In comparison, over the past year EVE Online has averaged around 23,000 users logged in at any one time. Given CIG has experienced twice the sales of CCP Games over the last few years, I was a little surprised at how small the Star Citizen player base really is.

Final Fantasy XIV's New Twitch Campaign

Over the past year or so I've participated in several Twitch campaigns sponsored by CCP Games. The goal of the campaigns is simple. Help streamers of EVE by boosting the number of accounts watching along with increasing watch time. After awhile I just ignore the campaigns unless something unusual happens.

My Inventory Page currently

Like today. Final Fantasy XIV has a new Twitch campaign that doesn't just involve watch time. 

We are excited to announce a new Twitch Support-A-Streamer campaign! A familiar frosty friend with purple accessories is making its debut, just in time for the Starlight Celebration in-game event on Monday, December 16!

Players will be able to obtain the Snowstreamer mount, along with 50 aetheryte tickets, by purchasing or gifting three Twitch subscriptions while watching eligible FFXIV channels during the Starlight Celebration campaign period.

Campaign Duration

From Monday, December 16, 2024 at 12:00 a.m. (PST) to Tuesday, December 31, 2024 at 6:59 a.m. (PST)

Campaign Rewards

Purchase or gift three (3) Twitch subscriptions while watching any channel streaming FINAL FANTASY XIV Online and receive an item code via your Twitch notifications for the following combined rewards:

• Three (3) Twitch Subscriptions: Fifty (50) Aetheryte Tickets and the Snowstreamer Bell.

Throwing money at a company (Twitch gets its cut) to get a mount? FFXIV has a long history of doing such. Perhaps one of the most famous is the Butterfinger mount from 2021. Buy $5 of Butterfinger products, snap a photo of the receipt, and score a chocolatey new mount. In fact, the mount returned as a Twitch reward which I managed to snag. More recently, FFXIV did a promotion for the Mountain Zu mount, which probably cost a a bit more.

I think a lot of the outrage over the promotion is players are used to items received from Twitch drops usually are free, ignoring any costs of leaving a Twitch stream open for a few hours. The other part of the outrage is the effective cost of the mount. I already have the snowman mount from when the event originally ran in 2020. The Twitch mount is just a reskinned mount replacing the color red with purple and is available in the cash shop for $12 (or $8.40 during the current sale). Three subs is either $15 or $18 (I'm not sure which) and 50 aetheryte tickets doesn't make up for the value difference. Trust me, I go out and farm for aetheryte tickets every week.

Perhaps we should keep an eye on the latest campaign. If successful, I bet more game companies will shift to rewarding Twitch subscriptions.

EVE Online Activity In November 2024

Do the developers of EVE Online have the ability to make players in the game's null security regions happy? I've had my doubts for years. After all, the developers in charge have made some pretty bone-headed decisions like the Chaos and Scarcity Eras over the past five years. But with the launch of a second null-based expansion this year in November observers may begin to get enough data to tell.

Jester's Average Concurrent User chart

From just before the launch of Uprising in November 2022 to the end of the launch month of Havoc in November 2024, the average number of accounts logged into Tranquility rose from just under 16,000 to just under 24,000. After an initial bump after the launch of Revenant, the metric is falling back down to 24,000 accounts. The fall shows little to no growth at least in the number of accounts going back a year.

The monthly economic report for November came out yesterday and I eagerly searched for the Active ISK Delta. After October's MER I thought the chance existed for two months of positive Active ISK Deltas for the first time since January 2017. I was a bit disappointed.

Sinks and Faucets, November 2024 MER

Instead, the net effect of players leaving and returning to EVE Online withdrew 79.1 trillion ISK, or 3.2% of the game's money supply, from the economy. To give an example of how much ISK was withdrawn, players paid a total of 25.2 trillion ISK in transaction taxes.

The 7 Active ISK Deltas below -75 trillion ISK

Yes, the Active ISK Delta was among the top 5 largest amounts of ISK withdrawn from the game in a single month going back to January 2017. But are large drops just expected in the month of November?

Active ISK Deltas for the month of November

The average Active ISK Delta for the month of November from 2017 to 2023 was actually a positive number: 8.8 trillion ISK. The positive number was due to the effects surrounding two expansions, Uprising in 2022 and Havoc in 2023. Perhaps the most impressive fact about 2022 and 2023 is that the Active ISK Delta was positive in the month following the annual Crimson Harvest event. The low sec/factional warfare focused expansions managed to retain and grow the number of players while the null sec focused Revenant did not.

Data from Dotlan EVE Maps

Looking at month-over-month data from Dotlan, activity decreased in five of the six categories I track. For instance, player ship kills decreased MoM by 13.5%, and the drop occurred despite ship kills increasing by 13.4% in Uitra. Player ships exploded in low sec 3.3% less often while the number of NPCs killed by players dropped between 1.8% and 3.3% across the three security bands. That's right, in a month a null sec focused patch dropped, NPC kills in null dropped below 200 million.

Data from Dotlan EVE Maps

Even in the one category that increased, player ships lost in null sec, I have to wonder how much of the 10.3% increase was due to seasonal effects. In 2023, the same metric increased by 17.6% between October and November. Finally, year-over-year the number of player-owned ships exploding in null sec actually went down 0.8%.

I figure the next expansion will also have a heavy null sec focus. I think the numbers we've seen over the past five or six months indicate such a focus is warranted. But what if the developers literally do not have the ability to make null sec players happy? Of course, given the history of the game, if I see problems brewing, the folks in charge in Reykjavik probably think everything is going better than planned. Which means what the company touts at Fanfest in May should prove enlightening, if not entertaining.

EVE Frontier Enters Closed Alpha Today

My predictions for Project Awakening in 2024, now known as EVE Frontier, were a little off. I did not expect Thursday's press release announcing the Closed Alpha for the blockchain game. The text is short enough to post the main part of the press release below.

CCP Games Announces Founder Access for EVE Frontier

REYKJAVÍK, Iceland – December 5, 2024 – Today, CCP Games announced Founder Access for EVE Frontier, giving players the opportunity to shape the future of the space survival simulation and access its in-development build on a continuous basis. Starting Tuesday December 10, Founder Access holders can join an exclusive, always-on server in Closed Alpha, where they will leave their mark on the galaxy of the Frontier as it evolves.

EVE Frontier is an online survival sandbox with an open server, economy and ecosystem: able to be modified through configurable and programmable components, currencies and features. Today’s ‘First Look’ showcases CCP Games’ vision for a merciless space survival experience that will reward player skill, awareness and mastery over the environment. As an awakened husk you will be cast into the long dark to explore, survive and build anew across over 100,000 star systems filled with death and opportunity.

Founder Access marks the next phase in EVE Frontier's development journey, offering permanent pre-launch access to players. Starting with Closed Alpha, Founder Access holders will be able to play, give feedback and experience the future of EVE Frontier as new features and content are added continuously. Founder Access packs offer additional benefits such as name reservation, cosmetics, Discord roles, access to CCP Games developer streams and more. Founders will also be able to redeem included premium subscription time when EVE Frontier launches as free-to-play in the future.

"In EVE Frontier we are deepening the contribution and connection players have over a living galaxy. A virtual world where developers and players are equals, where the rules apply to all." said CCP Games CEO, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson. "Our long-term vision is to create an open ecosystem built, operated and governed by the Frontier's inhabitants themselves. Founder Access is the start of a new and exciting phase in this development, giving players the chance to be a foundational part of our collaborative approach in a meaningful way."

While CCP describes the game as an "online survival sandbox with an open server, economy and ecosystem," I would describe the game as a full-loot PvP sandbox blockchain MMORPG. Or, as the crew over at MassivelyOP would say, a gankbox. As such, those who do not like non-consensual PvP should stop reading and forget the game even exists.

Also, if the presence of blockchain technology in a game makes one pause, also stop reading and put the credit card away. Especially if one is concerned about losing real world assets to in-game (and real world) PvP. The game will draw people collectively known as "cryptobros" and the sub-set known as "crypto-wolves." When these types of people are circling a video game, the odds are that the only way to win is not to play the game.

With those mandatory warnings out of the way, I should add that access to the Closed Alpha is currently available at the EVE Frontier website under "Founder's Access".

Starting Alpha Packages

Oh, and I should add those buying and entering the game are under an NDA until further notice. From the FAQ.

Yes, players in Founder Access will be subject to a Non-Disclosure Agreement as EVE Frontier enters Closed Alpha on 10 December. This means that while players can access the game, they cannot share gameplay publicly. We aim to lift NDAs in the future when we move out of Closed Alpha and as we continue to harden the core experience of our space survival simulation.

I already was coming into the game with a little trepidation. I did choose the Awakened account because I figure I wanted an account I could easily throw away at launch. I should also add that while the developers are boasting of the lack of information available through the UI, they did make telling the high-rollers apart from the cheapskates. Also, for the wolves out there, you want to go after those with the early access time. Also note I'm not one of those players.

At this point I should add that CCP plans to use blockchain technology to add sand to the sandbox. The developers partially accomplish the feat through the use of smart assemblies. The current FAQ describes these as:

Players can construct infrastructure such as storage facilities, trading posts, defenses and more. Think of it as enhanced base-building. Through each structure having a programmable layer, EVE Frontier allows for greater moddability and player expression on top of each "base item". Constructing infrastructure and deploying it on the Frontier does not require it to be programmed.

For example, a Smart Storage Unit (SSU) is a structure anchored in space, which acts as smart storage, holding and dispensing any form of inventory players choose to load it with (currencies, items etc.). With Smart Assemblies, this structure can be coded to serve as a marketplace, a quest giver, a bounty hunter system, an arcade machine etc. The programmable interface can be coded to be anything that results in an in-game output relevant to each piece of infrastructure.

For those wanting more details about the blockchain technology.

As an open environment, players can edit components of the game world and game server in real-time; giving the community the power to add their own functionality through Smart Assemblies, a feature that lets players program and configure in-game components and structures.

Smart Assemblies utilizes MUD, a framework for building on-chain applications: MUD | Framework and Redstone, a L2 blockchain designed for permissionless, open software: Redstone | Cost-effective chain for MUD apps, games, and worlds.

Combined with Carbon, these tools are at the foundation of our persistent and programmable game server at universe-scale: one server, one universe, evolving through players forever.

In addition, EVE Frontier features a player-driven, open economic sandbox using cryptographic standards. Create your own currencies, establish markets, and trade assets, services, and reputation for real-world value in a truly unrestricted environment.

Now, I'm not sure about using blockchain technology. My understanding is blockchains are slower than databases, for instance. From my limited knowledge, the big advantage is making the real world monetization process easier for the game publisher. But I'm sure I'll be wrong.

While this post I think is rather negative in tone, I have played EVE Online for 15 years. What are the two big rules in EVE?

1. Don't fly what you cannot afford to lose.
2. Trust no one.

I'm taking those rules with me into EVE Frontier. Especially since I know a lot of people will play the game to make real world cash.

Star Citizen's Intergalactic Aerospace Expo Pulls In $24.2 Million In Sales In 2024

Star Citizen's Intergalactic Aerospace Expo, the game's largest fundraising and new player recruitment event, concluded yesterday. The $24.2 million in sales fell 1.4% short of last year's $24.5 million sales total. On the recruitment side, only 51,848 accounts were created, a 27.8% decline from 2023's 71,811.

From the CCU Game Dashboard

For the first time since 2014 the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo experienced a year-over-year decline in sales. But a 1.4% YoY drop in sales should not spell trouble for CIG. To put the amount into perspective, the $24.2 million in sales CIG achieved over the past 14 days is 48.3% greater than the $15.1 million recorded by all games in the EVE franchise in the 3rd quarter of 2024. Overall, CIG is still on pace to record between $110-$120 million in cash shop sales for the third consecutive year in 2024. The company only needs another $3.6 million through the remainder of December to achieve that mark. If anything, this year's IAE sales performance should emphasis that CIG has probably maximized yearly sales from the cash shop and should plan accordingly.

The area that should cause concern is new account creation. Not only is this year's amount a 27.8% drop from last year, but is a 46.3% decline from the 107,705 new accounts created during the IAE in 2022. Eventually a declining player base will result in lower revenues. The launch of Squadron 42 may help in this regard, but the launch of CIG's single player game is not until sometime in 2026.

Given proper management, CIG should survive, and rather comfortably, through 2025 to reap the benefits of the launch of the studios first released game in 2026. However, I do have to include a reminder the man in charge at CIG is Chris Roberts. Given his track record at Digital Anvil, where he had to sell the studio to Microsoft because he ran out of money during the development of Freelancer, 2025 may hold a great deal of financial troubles for the company.

Do Rolling Expansion Launches Work?

A curious thing happened with the launch of EVE Online's latest expansion, Revenant. The developers keep rolling out content. First, we had the initial expansion launch on 12 November. Writing up the patch notes, the expansion seemed a lot smaller than the Equinox expansion in June. But then, two weeks later, the developers rolled out what I called the Thanksgiving patch on 26 November. When I read the patch notes, I thought to myself, "This is a mini-expansion." I published another 5 posts covering that patch.

This week players saw another sizable patch for Revenant. The accompanying dev blog detailed a new corporation project type, a new use for Evermarks, and starting tomorrow in-game cinematic introductions for ships. And I'm not even including today's patch. (Spoiler, check the wrecks in space.) Unlike other patches, I didn't even dedicate a post on the latest updates to the Tranquility shard.

I can see why CCP would choose a rolling launch for Revenant. They had two dates reserved for content drops at the end of November and start of December anyway. Last week saw a patch associated with the development and testing of EVE Vanguard, CCP's first person shooter under development. And tomorrow is the launch of EVE's second big seasonal event, Winter Nexus. If the developers have additional content to deploy, why not just add it to the patch?

Well, players of Final Fantasy XIV might go apoplectic. Maintenance downtime periods for content patches for the Square Enix title usually run from 6 hours for point patches to a full day for expansions. But CCP has really worked on their deployment capabilities over the years and now a thirty minute downtime is long. Now if CCP can just eliminate the daily downtime.

Anyway, I'm sure deploying a patch over 2, 3, or even 4 days does make things easier on the back end. But how about the player experience? Is it better to have everything dumped on our heads all at once, or spoon fed a little at a time over a few weeks? I'd hate it in FFXIV, but in EVE? I personally don't mind, except for when I need to cover the topic.

More Layoffs Reported At Cloud Imperium Games

Apparently Cloud Imperium Games, developers of the upcoming full loot, PvP sandbox MMORPG Star Citizen, didn't wait to see the financial results of this year's Intergalactic Aerospace Expo before making decisions on the size of its workforce for 2025. According to Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, CIG started laying off staff a few days ago.

The original claims were made by a former CIG employee who then locked his Twitter account (now known as X). Those claims I totally disregard as uncredible and possibly the result of a bitter former employee looking to strike back at his former employer.

What I do find credible is Henderson's reporting that his sources indicate up to 12 employees, mostly from the QA department, were let go. Henderson has earned some credibility with his reporting on the layoffs at the beginning of 2024 at CIG's North American offices as well as the CitizenCon crunch story at the beginning of October. In other words, Henderson has more credibility than some random Twitter user with an axe to grind who locks away his allegations so others cannot check the story.

I find the story of the layoffs credible from a different direction. CIG is currently on pace to bring in as much money this year as the company did in 2022. According to CIG's financial report for 2022, the company turned a profit of $1.3 million with somewhere between 15%-20% less staff than today. Since employee costs make up a huge portion of the budget, figure overall costs are 15%-20% higher in 2024 than 2022, even after the approximately 10% force reduction at the beginning of the year.

With cash shop sales apparently plateauing between $110-$120 million per year, CIG probably needs to cut costs to stay in business. But cutting QA? From everything I've read and watched, one thing not done to excess is quality assurance. I realize CIG's customer base does a lot of QA work on Star Citizen, but these cuts may cut too close to the bone in the long-run. Then again, Chris Roberts may still be salty about what happened during the Squadron 42 demo at CitizenCon.

Cloud Imperium Games' Sales Down 28.7% YoY In November 2024

While expected, Cloud Imperium Games posted another 25%+ year-over-year decline in cash shop sales in November according to the CCU Game dashboard. Last month's total of $20.3 million in cash shop sales was a 28.7% decline compared to November 2023's figure of $28.4 million. For the year the company's sales revenue is a few thousand dollars short of $98 million, down $11.2 million, or 10.2% for from the first 11 months of 2023.

For those who keep track of new accounts (aka "new citizens"), November's 61,068 was 33.9% less than the total of 92,395 in November 2023. For the year, new account creation is down 30.4% for the first 11 months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

Overall, the recorded sales tracked on the CCU Game dashboard is $755.3 million since the launch of the Kickstarter in October 2012. But Cloud Imperium has additional funding sources not tracked by the dashboard. Overall, the company has recorded $853.9 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2022 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $755.3 million (through 30 November 2024)
• Subscriptions: $33.0 million (through 31 December 2022)
• All other sources: $65.6 million (through 31 December 2022)

In addition, the company has received a total of $63.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2022 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $917.2 million, or $912.4 million when excluding the returned funds.

I started this post with the word "While expected" for a reason. Because after my November update, I found out CIG had shifted some dates for the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo into December. Through the first 9 days of the event, sales this year were $414,000, or 2.7%, ahead of last year's pace.

Here is my take from 7 November upon hearing of the event's shift into December

Cloud Imperium announced the IAE will run from Nov 22-Dec 5. This shifts Star Citizen's biggest ship sale partially into December. Expect YoY revenue in November to drop from $28.4 million to $18-$22 million and rise in December from $8.4 million up to $14-$18 million. 1/2

— Noizy (@noizygamer.bsky.social) November 7, 2024 at 11:09 AM

I'm projecting sales for Q4 to fall between $42 million and $50 million. While not matching last year's performance, it will be CIG's second highest sales quarter in its 12 year history. However, those sales would see CIG either match last year's sales total or fall as much as 7% short of 2023. 2/2

— Noizy (@noizygamer.bsky.social) November 7, 2024 at 11:13 AM

Will CIG's cash shop sales this year surpass those of 2023? The prospect becomes less likely each day. Here are the December sales totals CIG needs to achieve to meet certain metrics of success.

• Match December 2023 sales: $8.3 million
• Match Total 2022 sales: $16.2 million
• Match Total 2023 sales: $19.6 million
• Match Q4 2023 sales: $22 million
• Match 2022 Total spending: $31.5 million

I threw in the final category of matching 2022's total spending to highlight that ship sales don't pay all the bills for CIG. Also, despite news of post-CitizenCon layoffs amongst the QA staff, headcount at CIG is still probably between 15%-20% greater today than in 2022, meaning total expenses probably increased by that much as well.

Renewing My EVE Subscriptions On Black Friday

Every year players of EVE Online always ask about sales on EVE subscriptions (aka Omega time) on Black Friday. Usually the answer is no. But I saw the ad for Black Friday sales on the launcher and amazingly this year's sale included game time. So I had to dive into the store and look around.

I have two accounts I pay for, with one running out of game time in April and the other in October. But if the sale is good and I have less than a year remaining I'll buy the sale. And the Black Friday sale was particularly good. Forget about the SKINs. The cosmetics are for ships I will probably never fly, especially the Monitor. But at $9.62 per 30 days when buying game time one year at a time, the price is less than half that of buying game time once a month ($19.99). So I went ahead and bought the 12 month Omega package.

I also looked at the packages and found one with SKINs for ships I actually fly. The Rifter and Arbitrator are nice and while I don't fly Retrievers, I do like the Rockbreaker SKINs. So I bought the Silver Starter Pack for the sale price of $11.99 for both accounts. So at the end of the day, I purchased 390 days of Omega time for $9.80 per 30 days.

I was reminded of one other thing at the checkout screen. I was asked for a content creators WeHype code. I spent over $250 today but didn't have a code to put in. A pity because that was $12.75 that could have gone to someone. If content creators were ever going to participate in the program, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the times to join.

I did notice PLEX were not on sale today. Hopefully we will see the in-game New Eden Store which uses PLEX as currency hold a Cyber Monday sale. Now that I saw that the Rockbreaker SKINs are not just for mining barges and exhumers, I might want to pick up a few if they are on sale.

EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Trustbreaker Arrays

Tomorrow is the CCP Games' first effort to link gameplay in EVE Online and its new first person shooter under development, EVE Vanguard. From 28 November to 1 December a testing event for the FPS game will go on requiring some sort of involvement from players in EVE Online. Between the dev blog and patch notes, here's the information provided by CCP.

First from the dev blog.

In connection with the Vanguard deployment starting on 28 November, the Deathless Circle has deployed Trustbreaker Arrays, which connect to the enigmatic Warden structure in Zarzakh. These arrays scan for crucial passkeys required to breach planetary defenses, enabling Vanguard forces to claim planetary strongholds. However, the arrays are now under siege by Drifter forces, and the Deathless has issued a call to capsuleers to intervene. 

From 26 November to 2 December, pilots can defend the arrays to earn ISK rewards, or destroy them to seize passkeys as valuable commodities. These skirmishes offer a high-stakes choice: stand with the Deathless or shut their operations down. 

The patch notes provided important information. Things like ship restrictions, recommended group sizes, and where to find the Trustbreaker Arrays. You know, the important stuff.

The Deathless Circle has deployed Planetary Trustbreaker Arrays to steal passkeys for planetary defense networks ahead of Vanguard assaults. These sites have fallen under attack by Drifter forces!

• Deathless Trustbreaker Under Attack sites are appearing in pirate Insurgency FOB systems.
  
  
• Capsuleer fleets can choose to protect the Trustbreaker Array for the duration to receive a reward from the Deathless. 5 capsuleers are recommended for this challenge.
  
  
• Alternatively, those who do not wish to support the Deathless can wait for the structure to generate PDN passkeys before destroying it. Many groups would pay handsomely for any such commodities seized from the wreckage!
  
  
• Regardless of their motivations, capsuleers are limited to bringing standard T1 cruisers or below within the site.

To participate in the testing, players in EVE Online should find an insurgency between 28 November and 1 December and take a side. Oh, did I mention rewards? No cookies, but everyone likes skill points, right?

The battle intensifies on 28 November, as war descends to the surface in EVE Vanguard. Insurgency deployments unleash warclones on planets to directly impact the ongoing war in space. In addition, capsuleers get daily rewards for taking flight in EVE Online between 28 November and 1 December: Vanguard-themed SKIN design components, 3,000 EverMarks, and 50,000 Skill Points. Choose your allegiance, shape planetary battlefields, and leave your mark on the EVE Online universe from the ground as well as amongst the stars. Learn more about EVE Vanguard and add the game to your Steam wishlist so you don’t miss a moment of action.