CCP Seagull Flies Away And Weirdness At Daybreak Games

CCP released the new Abyssal Deadspace content on Singularity yesterday. Instead of joining in on the fun, two stories are distracting me.

The first story is the news that EVE Online's Executive Producer, Andie Nordgren, is leaving CCP to return to Sweden and work for Unity Technologies.

Some personal news - moving to Sweden with the family in July! Sad to leave Iceland and CCP after 8 amazing years, but very excited to join Unity in Copenhagen! Friends and family in the area - see you soon! pic.twitter.com/UbkQCN9pzG

— Andie Nordgren (@nordgren) April 26, 2018

Nordgren announced on the official forums she will leave the company sometime in June, so I still have time to write a proper post before she leaves. I'll just note that Nordgren's initial job with CCP involved working with Carbon and the Core Technology Group and she leaves to work on the Unity game engine. For those interested in Nordgren's background before becoming EVE's Executive Producer, I wrote a little piece back in 2014.

Going from sadness to madness, what is going on with Daybreak Games? Starting from the premise that Daybreak Games is under threat of US sanctions against Russia due to the company's ownership by Columbus Nova, a subsidiary of the Renova Group owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, the situation got weird. A spokesperson for Daybreak told MassivelyOP Tuesday that Columbus Nova never owned Daybreak, and that years of press releases and privacy policy statements players agreed to were incorrect.

On Thursday, Daybreak laid off an estimated 70 employees as MMORPG.com reported that Daybreak ownership was shopping the studio around for sale. The report singled out Intrepid Studios as a serious suitor. As a former EQ2 player, I plan on following the story.

Abyssal Deadspace:

CCP has not published a dev blog about how Abyssal space will work, but we know three basic mechanics I believe will heavily influence the acceptance rate of the content.

1. Players must exit from Abyssal space at the same place they enter.
2. While in Abyssal space, local does not function.
3. Other players can probe down the exit.

From a science-fiction and lore standpoint, the mechanics make perfect sense. When opening a gate into another type of space, of course you need to use the same gate back. Also, if wormholes are detectable with probes, then so should this other type of space. So far, so good.

From a game mechanics standpoint, the situation resembles jumping from high sec to low sec with a blinged-out ship without bothering to scout the other side. If necessary, I can dual-box, letting my leadership/industrial character fly a Stratios through the content while my main sits outside cloaked up in a Falcon. But I think the purpose of Abyssal space is to provide new, dynamic PvE content to casual players. Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone has two or more Omega accounts.

Comparing the exiting of Abyssal space to jumping into a gate camp gives some parameters to test on Singularity once the feature appears on the test server. Here are the factors I plan on investigating.

1. Where can a player use a filament to open a deadspace site? I heard from other attendees at Fanfest that some of the restrictions on where a player can use a filament are still up in the air. CCP stated that players can run the sites in any system, but I highly doubt CCP will not issue restrictions on where players can open an entrance to Abyssal space within a system. I assume sites cannot use filaments near citadels, NPC stations, and star gates. My question is whether will restrict filament use to within 4 AU of a planet. If so, then probing down exits to Abyssal deadspace pockets in a system becomes much easier.

2. Will the Abyssal sites show up as cosmic anomalies, cosmic signatures, or neither in the probe window? As the ease of hunting down Abyssal deadspace zones will influence where, when, and whether PvE players will run the sites, how the beacons appear in the probe scanner window is key. The description of the exit beacon announced at Fanfest highly suggests the sites will not show up as cosmic anomalies. Cosmic anomalies not only automatically identify that classification of site upon a player entering a system, but do not require the use of probes to scan down.

That leaves treating the Abyssal deadspace sites as either cosmic signatures or mission instances. I lean towards believing CCP will choose to see Abyssal space like a wormhole, if only for lore reasons. But I only lean that way, as mechanically Abyssal space will work like receiving a mission from an agent in space. Just as accepting a mission from an agent creates a mission instance, activating a filament will create an instance of Abyssal deadspace. From a development standpoint, if the Abyssal content is a testbed for future changes in EVE PvE, then I think treating the new type of space as a mission site makes more sense. Or in other words, I can see the justification for either way CCP chooses to proceed.

Of the two choices, I think treating the new deadspace sites like wormholes is the way CCP will proceed. Not only for lore reasons, but to satisfy demands to make the new content more dangerous. If CCP treats the Abyssal deadspace sites as a cosmic anomaly, all a hunter or small gang needs to do is fly into a system, record the signatures, and then the next time the hunter enters the system, check for new signatures. Odds are that the new signature will either be a wormhole or an exit from Abyssal space. With a likely target spotted, all the hunters need to do is scan down the new signature. Easy peasy. I can think of a couple of ways to set up Google Sheets or Excel to do the work of picking out the new signature.

3. What is the signature strength required to successfully probe an Abyssal deadspace beacon? I honestly can’t see CCP making the exits from Abyssal space difficult to probe down. That said, CCP also has an interest in seeing a few high-quality modules appear on the contract market (and on killmails) to spur greater user acceptance of the feature. I can see where the higher the tier of filament used to open an entrance, the harder the beacon is to probe for hunters. We already see that with data and relic sites, which are cosmic anomalies, so using the same mechanics makes sense.

4. How long does the beacon remain after a player exits the site? At this point I assume the cloak will hold the standard length of time. The invulnerability cloak is a technical mechanic put in to allow a player to load the grid before having to interact with hostile players. The question is, will anyone camping the exit receive a visual queue that the person running the Abyssal site has exited before the site runner decloaks? The biggest visual queue I can imagine is the exit despawning before the site runner decloaks.

5. Do players in an Abyssal deadspace pocket appear in the system’s local? We know that local will not work in Abyssal space. But will the player running the site still appear in local in k-space? If not, then the player exiting the site will appear in local before uncloaking, giving the hunters a visual cue. Not a definitive cue, but at least a warning to be alert. But if the player running the site does show up in local, then hunters can just ignore empty systems when roaming for content. Either way, local is an intelligence tool useful to the hunter.

6. How far away from the beacon does the player exit? Since players must emerge from Abyssal space where they entered, I wonder if that piece of information presented at Fanfest is literal. If so, then all a hunter must do to keep his prey from cloaking is sit within 1 km of the beacon with a swarm of drones orbiting his ship and the odds of escape without a fight decline by a not insignificant amount. Or will ships reappear in k-space some distance from the beacon? The greater the distance, the greater the chance of escape as the sphere hunters need to cover grows. I can see PvPers lobbying to keep the distance within scram range as low and high security space do not allow the deployment of bubbles. If the same rules governing star gates apply to Abyssal space exits, then the distance will be 10km from the edge of the exit. The question then becomes, how big is the exit?

Conclusion. Since returning from Fanfest, I heard some express surprise that those attending the Fanfest keynote were not ecstatic at the news of the new Triglavian Collective content in the Into the Abyss expansion coming to EVE Online on 29 May. My initial reaction sitting in the audience was extremely negative. Now I just look at the content as jumping into a prepared gate camp. I don’t like doing so in a blockade runner or covert ops frigate, much less a combat ship.

I consider myself pretty risk-averse, but people have told me that a penchant for low sec mining means I don’t qualify as a complete carebear. Still, I like to stack the odds in my favor. I think the big problem with my lack of excitement over the content is that I can’t tell if the odds are for or against escaping the area of the Abyssal space exit with my loot. Why get excited over content I potentially will never run?

Fanfest 2018: Reflections

Sitting in the press room CCP set up in the Harpa is a reminder that Fanfest is not just an event for players to gather from all over the world to discuss serious internet spaceship business. Fanfest also gives CCP the opportunity to tell the world their upcoming plans not only for EVE Online, but other products as well. Fanfest 2018 was my seventh event. Thanks to Matterall, the host of Talking in Stations, I got to see a side of the event I never thought I’d see.

From an outsider’s perspective, EVE is a fascinating, but complicated game. Most of the journalists who attend Fanfest write with a non-EVE audience in mind. Players who have spent years playing EVE find trying to make EVE comprehensible to non-players a challenge. For every Brendan Drain, Steve Messner, and Lee Yancy writing about video games, there are others who do a parachute drop into a game convention and write the basic story about the business side of CCP. The “EVE media” fills an important niche in writing up the facts and player stories that the mainstream gaming media outlets don’t want to cover, even if the writers on the ground do.

Embedding with the gaming press also gave me a new appreciation for some of the work that goes on behind the scenes at an event like Fanfest. CCP Grendel’s team had to set up the press area and keep it staffed and stocked with drinks and meals so the journalists could stay on site and work, but also help arrange the time for each journalist to make their lives as easy as possible. Oh, and try to make the event journalists will want to come back and cover next year.

Moving on, I think the October layoffs hurt the event. A few things stood out. Did anyone notice that Hilmar didn’t sound quite right at times when he was on stage? People reported that the teleprompter malfunctioned at times. I think he still did better than some professional politicians I could name, but the effort probably came off as distracted.

The end of the keynote, and the replaying of the trailer, also came off a bit weird. Normally, CCP plays the trailer, the crowd erupts at the end, and the trailer runs again. This year, the trailer just played twice in a row.

Some things just ran differently due to CCP’s reduced staff levels. A team of volunteers lead by EVE Vegas veteran Greygal handled checking in attendees. I think the extended check-in period as compared to EVE Vegas really helped. I know that last October, between the horrible elevators at The Linq and trying to process everyone is such a short period of time through a confusing maze of lines, I got a little frustrated.

One thing I can’t comment on is the EVE TV coverage. I was on-site, so I couldn’t watch. I heard that the presenters this year were all players. For those wondering where CCP Mimic was, I can report she was very visibly pregnant. CCP Guard, on the other hand, was just running around like a maniac.

One tidbit I noticed was the presence of CCP Fozzie and CCP Larrikin everywhere I went. I attended two disparate roundtables, Lowsec/Faction Warfare and Markets, and both were present. CCP Quant recently left CCP and Larrikin took his place running the monthly economic report. Either CCP is short staffed, or CCP Larrikin is moving up the ladder. I hope the latter is the case, as Larrikin seems like a good guy.

One of the things people who go to Fanfest talk about is the chance to talk with the developers. Between writing the blog and attending the convention of seven years, I really do get to talk to a few devs. Then again, developers are people too who like talking with a whole bunch of people who appreciate their work. CCP Nomad stands out for this, as he bought me a beer after we abandoned attempting to get into the Tweetfleet karaoke event, even though he had no idea who I was.

I got the chance to talk with devs as varied as CCP Peligro, CCP Masterplan, and CCP Fozzie. Oh, and I didn’t get to talk with CCP Grimmi, but I did get to say hi as the Party at the Top of the World ended. Did you know he wrote or co-wrote some of Permaband’s songs? If you look closely at the footage, you can see him playing bass guitar.

I also got to see a couple of former devs. I met a ribbon-and-pin festooned Grideris, the community developer formerly known as CCP Logibro, at the final bar on the pub crawl. I didn’t go on the pub crawl, but the group I was with ate dinner there and stuck around all night. Have I mentioned I’m still puzzled as to why they let Grideris go? Six months after the layoffs, the move seems pretty short-sighted if you ask me, but what do I know?

The big name I got to talk with for quite a bit was the former CCP Quant. I found out last year he was a fan of the blog from when he was a player. We talked about a few things, with the others at the table, who just happened to be market traders, also asking questions. CCP Quant also gave me some advice on calculating price indexes, as I hope to include some in future economic analysis posts. The last I saw of Quant, a wild Seagull had swooped in and carried him off to the middle of town.

Now, to address the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The Triglavian Collective. The concept of putting in a tech testbed on Tranquility scares me just a bit. First, what happens if players don’t flock to the Abyssal complexes? Will CCP abandon the effort? I hope not, but I have a couple of concerns that could lead to players not running the content.

The first is the risk factor associated with running the sites. My concern isn’t the potential difficulty of running procedurally-generated sites facing off against challenging NPCs, all the while racing the clock to kill the boss before the pocket of Abyssal space collapses. I’m worried about the risk that players will pose as players emerge from the sites back into k-space. Here are some of the questions I have.

The first is, when players emerge, will they emerge on the beacon created by using the filament? Or will the players emerge within a sphere around the site. And if in a sphere, how big is the sphere? I can foresee exiting a site turning into walking into a gate camp, complete with a swarm of drones to decloak players using a ship with a covert ops cloak like a Stratios.

The second is selling the new transformed modules. Players cannot sell the new items on the market since so many sets of stats falling under the same item name will exist. Instead, the items will have to use the contract system. The big question is whether contract system will prove adequate to handle the sale of the new modules when Into the Abyss launches on 29 May.

At this point, I am not concerned with the ability of large null sec organizations to organize in the most efficient way to farm the sites. Large, well organized organizations can min/max anything. One of the selling points of the Abyssal space complexes is that CCP designed the content for short (15 minute) play sessions. What I hope to see is the casual players whom CCP designed the content for interested in engaging with the content. I just didn’t get enough information in Reykjavik to make an informed prediction. Reading the upcoming dev blogs and running the content on Singularity is key.

Finally, I’d like to mention one of the big reasons for attending these events: the players I meet. I won’t name them, mostly because I’d forget so many names. But also, because I talked to so many people, some of them might get blamed if I get something terribly wrong. Just figure that when I write about EVE, all mistakes are my own.

One of the big advantages of Fanfest over EVE Vegas is the more international flavor of the event. Besides the ever-present residents of the UK, I talked with players from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia. When I went on the tour of the south shore of Iceland, I even partnered up with someone from the Isle of Man. I have the feeling I forgot a couple of countries, although I don’t think Russian game journalists count.

As someone who pretty much plays the game solo, the opportunity to interact with so many players of different play styles helps keep me from developing a provincial point of view. I had the opportunity to rub shoulders from null sec alliance leaders to line members. I don’t think I ran into too many low sec players, but I heard about the upcoming changes in Into the Abyss from high sec players looking for more challenging solo content. I also heard from market traders and industrialists whose point of view I frequently overlook as I play. I have to admit my attitude towards the new Abyssal space content became more positive in the days after the keynote, even though almost everyone I talked to voiced a concern or two.

This blog post concludes my coverage of Fanfest 2018. EVE will feel the ripples from the events and presentations in the weeks to come as CCP posts dev blogs to let the players know more details about how Abyssal space and other new features will work. From a personal standpoint, I'll treasure my memories and can't wait to go back to that volcanic rock in the North Atlantic in 2020.

Fanfest 2018: Answers

Prior to heading out to Fanfest, I came up with somequestions I hoped to find the answers to while in Iceland. I figured now that I’m back in the States, I should record the answers.

1. What is coming in the summer expansion? I think I surprised some people at Fanfest by stating the expansion would come out on 29 May. Anyone who follows CCP’s release schedule would know, however. But enough about my Sherlock Holmes impression. What is in the expansion, Into the Abyss?

The centerpiece is the introduction of content for the Triglavian Domain. The Triglavians live in a different type of space called Abyssal space (hence the name of the expansion). For now, players can only access Abyssal space using Tech 1, Tech 2, and pirate or navy cruisers. To enter Abyssal space, players will need to use a filament to create a gateway between the two types of space. To make things interesting, players will have to exit Abyssal space from the same point.

The complexes within Abyssal space will consist of three procedurally generated rooms, with the final room containing a boss and phat loot such as skill books, blue print copies, and filaments that lead into deeper layers within Abyssal space with better loot. Players can also obtain living organisms that can transform the stats of a limited group of items, such as shield extenders/armor plates, shield boosters/armor repairers, propulsion modules, and electronic like scrams, webs, and neuts. The stats can either increase tremendously, turn the object into a pile of scrap metal, or fall somewhere in between.

I want to warn everyone that not only is the Triglavian content still in development, but that the whole area of content is a technological testbed existing on Tranquility. People with a long memory may remember CCP introduced Walking in Stations to players in the lead-up to the Incarna expansion in 2011 as a work under development. I really hope events transpire a bit differently this time.

I guess I should add one important feature of the new modules created by the transformation process. Due to the tremendous amount of combinations of statistics possible, the new modules will not appear on the market. Look for the items in contracts. Did I mention that potential purchasers cannot see the stats of the items in the contract? Yeah. Expect lots of scamming to occur until some trusted third-party sellers emerge. Hopefully, CCP will make changes to the contract system quickly, or I don’t see great adoption of the feature, at least not initially.

Update: CCP Fozzie says people will be able to see module statistics in the contracts.

Enjoying the posts so far. BTW there seems to have been a misunderstanding about the mutated modules and contracts. You will be able to see the stats of the mutated modules in contracts. However we still expect EVE players will find ways to scam people who don't pay attention :)

— CCP Fozzie (@CCP_Fozzie) April 17, 2018

A second major piece of news is that the conversion of player-built and conquerable stations to faction Fortizars will finally occur on 5 June. After that date, Pandemic Legion will probably depart Providence, allowing Provibloc to come back to the region. Whether PanFam will strip the region of all the faction Fortizars or sell them back to Provibloc is currently a matter of speculation.

Before leaving the topic, I need to mention the change that will most affect players immediately after launch day. The planetary interaction user interface is receiving over 40 quality-of-life improvements to reduce the amount of clicking. Into the Abyss may go down in EVE history as the expansion that fixed PI.

2. Any advancements in the NPC AI? As mentioned above, Abyssal space is a tech testbed. Expect the Triglavians, Drifters, Sleepers, and rogue drones present in the complexes to behave a bit differently that the existing NPCs on Tranquility. CCP warned that three-way fights between Triglavians, Drifters, and players will occur. We won’t know the full scope of the changes until they appear on the Singularity test cluster in the upcoming weeks. Also, expect changes to the content in the following releases on 3 July and 7 August. Players will undoubtedly find a way to make the content a bit easier than CCP would like.

3. What is the status of Project Discovery? We didn’t really receive a status on Project Discovery at Fanfest. No news about new citizen science projects leads me to believe that the current search for exoplanets will continue for the medium-term (6-12 months) future. I expect the content to remain relevant with the lore at least until the developers finish up the replacements for system cyno jammers and jump bridges, if not player-built star gates themselves. More importantly from my perspective, players will continue to earn CONCORD ship blueprint copies.

4. Who’s running for CSM? From what I heard, some 57 players applied to run for positions on the CSM, of which 48 successfully navigated the application form and will appear on the ballot. Shenanigans are already occurring, but I will leave news about that for future posts.

5. What is the status of Project Foundation? This has me scratching my head. According to the press handlers, Project Foundation was indeed the development name for the mobile game, EVE: War of Ascension. I didn’t go to the roundtable, but I hung around with someone who was addicted to the beta version released to Fanfest attendees. But I still want to know why the name change from Project Aurora to Project Foundation.

6. What is the status of Project Nova? According to CCP’s CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson’s presentation during the opening ceremony, Project Nova should release in months, not years. CCP did not show any gameplay footage, but players could sign up for news and access to the game on a website. Is a 2018, or even a Spring 2019 release possible?

7. Does the unnamed MMORPG under development exist? Nothing was said during the opening ceremony or the keynote, although I hear a game is in the initial stages of development.

Fanfest 2018: The Opening Ceremony And Andrew Groen

The first day of Fanfest is in the books. First, a couple of general observations. Having a little advanced knowledge freely handed out by CCP is strange. Access to the press room where I can store my laptop and coat helps a lot. The press also got to sit up on the 4th floor balcony. I’m not so sure that was as much as to give the members of the fourth estate a good view as much as to make sure they don’t get in the way of the players who’ve journeyed to see the presentations.

Since I picked up my press badge on Monday, I could bypass the check-in and proceed directly to the press room for the briefing at 9:30am. Besides getting a heads-up on what CCP considered the highlights of the convention, we received a link to download the press packet. That’s right, no grabbing screenshots from the VOD this year.

A little before 11am CCP Grendel and his crew shuffled us off to the main hall for the opening ceremonies. We got to see the end of the practice session, which answered one of my long-standing questions: why do the doors always open late?

At the opening session, we saw the usual banter between CCP Guard and a streamer, with Bjorn Bee replacing Manic Velocity as the player presenter this year. The first bit of interesting news was that Andrew Groen is writing a second book and his Kickstarter campaign launched Thursday morning.
About 45 minutes into the presentation, Hilmar made his entrance to talk a little about what was going on with CCP. He started off by giving an update on the Serenity server. The future looks promising for a continued presence of EVE in China. Whether CCP retains its partnership with TienCity remains to be seen.

Next, Hilmar addressed the state of virtual reality gaming at CCP. He stated that CCP will continue to support Valkyrie, Sparc, and Gunjack, but that the market is not big enough to support continued development of new titles.

After the update about VR, Hilmar moved on to two games originally discussed at EVE Vegas: Project Aurora and Project Nova. The mobile game, as first reported by Venture Beat, was renamed from Project Aurora to EVE: War of Ascension. The game picked up a publisher, Kongregate, and players could download the latest version of the game and play in Harpa. I don’t recall Hilmar giving a release date, but the Venture Beat article indicated a 2018 release.

Hilmar began the segment about CCP’s first person shooters with a mention of DUST 514. He then moved on to discuss Project Nova. Hilmar reiterated that the game would be a PC-based game that does not connect to EVE Online. A piece of information CCP has communicated over time, but still news to people who don’t follow CCP closely. Hilmar also displayed a link to sign up for access to the game. In possibly the biggest news of the opening ceremonies, Hilmar announced the game would launch in months, not years. I expect the game to release sometime in 2018.

The next presentation of interest to EVE players was Andrew Groen’s announcement of his next book, Empires of EVE: Volume 2. The book is a direct sequel of Volume 1, picking up after the fall of Band of Brothers and ending in 2016. The good news for those awaiting the book is that Andrew says the book is already halfway done, with EVE screenshots provided by Razorien.

The Kickstarter for the book launched on Thursday and he found out from the audience at the end of the presentation that the $12,500 goal had already been reached. An hour after he left the stage, the amount had surpassed $30,000.

After attending the keynote and drinking a lot afterward, I decided not to publish my thoughts about the content right now. I think to fairly judge the keynote, I need to attend the Triglavian Domain and Ship and Modules sessions today and the Structures presentation tomorrow. Notably, we were told in the press briefing those were can't miss sessions. But the fact I'm not excited following the keynote is an indication I'm not really excited. Also, the audience response was really muted compared to past years.

I have to end the post because I have to get ready for the Triglavian Domain presentation, so I have to wrap up the post now. I'll try to write something coherent tonight as I don't plan on going on the pub crawl. Buses and Brennivin don't mix.

Fanfest 2018: Last Thoughts Before The Show Begins

I'm about to leave the hotel to go to the Harpa and attend the press briefing. Ever wonder how all those articles about events at conventions are published so quickly? The press gets a briefing and then a few hours to write their stories. The press briefing for Fanfest begins at 9:30am and the keynote takes place from 1700-1800. Expect articles to appear either during the keynote or right after the presentation finishes.

I expect something big to come out of Fanfest, just based on the number of journalists running around. Yesterday's tinfoil is about as far as I intend to go until after the keynote, though. I should add a CSM candidate is pushing around a list of CSM candidates. I have refrained from publishing the link as the information has changed since I first saw it 36-48 hours before the information appeared on the EVE Online sub-Reddit. Who knows if the information will change again. At this point, I could wait for the official announcement. I will say if the list is correct, I only see 6 seats up for grabs, with 4 seats pretty much locked up.

Time to walk over to the Harpa now. If you can catch the live stream, I'd suggest doing so. I have the feeling those watching the stream will have a better sense of what is happening than those of us here on the ground.

Fanfest 2018: Is The Schedule A Lie?

I got back to my hotel after a nice lunch and started browsing the internet. Within a few minutes, I found something that had me growling, "Grr CCP!" Jason Wilson of Venture Beat published a story about Project Aurora:

"Eve Online launched back in for PC in 2003, and it’s found a dedicated audience who wants to fly spaceships and deal with the intergalactic politics of megacorps. It even branched into VR with Eve: Valkyrie. But it’s never been small enough to hold in your hand. That’s changing thanks to a new partnership with Kongregate and PlayRaven: Project Aurora is now Eve: War of Ascension, a new MMO for iOS and Android devices coming later this year." [emphasis mine]

Now, according to the Fanfest 2018 schedule, CCP was renaming Project Aurora to Project Foundation, a name CCP submitted for a U.S trademark on 21 December, 2017. The event team even scheduled a round table for Friday from 1500-1600.

Screenshot captured 11 April 2018

So what is the truth? Did Wilson get the story wrong, or was CCP attempting to hide a big reveal during the keynote on Thursday?

I went with CCP's public story, even modifying last Friday's post with the information from the schedule. But renaming Project Aurora to Project Foundation never felt right, somehow. This is what I wrote back in January:

"The possibility exists that the trademark is for a service that would replace the late Eve Gate portal. Or perhaps CCP is developing a portal that will link all of CCP's games together, similar to Activision/Blizzard's Battle.net. Still, with the gaming press speculating about whether CCP has a new MMORPG under development, an informed bet is that Project Foundation is the name of the new game. The name does follow CCP's naming convention for games under development."

An alternate theory does exist. The original company CCP contracted with couldn't develop the game, so Kongregate stepped in and took it's place. Would that necessitate acquiring a new trademark? Possibly.

So now I really do want to hear more about this Project Foundation. Were my first instincts correct? Or is there a bit of turmoil going on behind the scenes making the first mobile game based on the EVE Online IP?

Fanfest 2018: A Sense of Scale

On Tuesday, I took a little break from internet spaceships and took a 10-hour tour along the south shore of Iceland. I was once told one has to visit Iceland to truly understand EVE. What I took away from the tour is the sheer scale of the landmarks and physical features of Iceland. People have noted that Icelanders tend to think and dream big. Here's a few pictures that show some of the inspirations for such dreams.

Fanfest 2018: Checking In And A Little RMT News

I made it to Reykjavik and my hotel safe and sound. I didn’t buy any alcohol from the duty-free shop, just a giant candy bar which I used to keep myself awake long enough to record ISK prices on the black market. I think that CCP may have taken a large enforcement action this week which didn’t make itself felt until yesterday.

Player Auction ISK prices, 1 January - 8 April 2018

I don’t know if the general price hike I saw when I got to the hotel really was action by CCP or if a cartel formed that got together to do a little price fixing because profits really declined over the past 4-6 weeks. If I run into CCP Peligro, I’ll try to ask.

After taking a nap, I went over to the Harpa to pick up my badge and swag bag. As I got closer, I saw Iceland’s new cash crop: construction cranes.

Construction Cranes Everywhere

When CCP Falcon posted about construction keeping the parade from happening, he wasn’t kidding. The construction in Reykjavik has almost reached the Harpa, with the bus stop in front of the facility already blocked off.

This year, the early registration is only at the Harpa. Unlike past years, the temperature was a balmy 43F when I walked over with little wind. Not only paradise compared to past years, but a whole 10 freedom degrees warmer than Chicago.

Greygal In Charge

When I got to the table around 1600, there was no waiting. I didn’t expect much of an issue on a low traffic day like Monday. This year, Greygal and her team of player volunteers is handling check-in. I asked if she was glad for the extra days of check-ins to work out the kinks in the system. Unsurprisingly, she said yes. I’m pretty sure by the time most of the people come to check into Fanfest, the process will run a lot smoother than what I experienced at EVE Vegas.\

Of course, no event is complete without receiving a little swag. In addition to the traditional Fanfest t-shirt, CCP is handing out a star chart of the sky over Reykjavik the night EVE Online launched. I also received the Rifter USB hub that came with the Collectors Edition. I guess CCP had a bunch extra. In an environmentally-friendly move, this year’s bag is cloth instead of paper, with the Fanfest 2018 logo. I usually just throw the paper bags out, but I might keep this year’s bag.

Some of the contents of the swag bag

As you can see from the photo above, I have a media badge this year. Matterall from Talking in Stations fame was kind enough to let me have one offered to him by CCP. I’m not sure exactly what extra access I get apart from leaving my things in the press area and an invitation to a dinner Wednesday night. I’ll try to take advantage of the access, though.

I don’t thing this post was entirely coherent, but then again neither am I right now. I’m still suffering a little jet lag. I hope to have that problem taken care of by tomorrow.

Setting Off For Fanfest, Foreshadowing, And Sad Tidings

I'm about to leave for the airport and should wind up at the hotel taking a nap in about 12 hours. But before I go off, I thought I'd post a couple of items of interest.

The first is the appearance of a "Triglavian medium." The roleplay description from The Discourse calls the ship a "Singularity Cruiser." For those who want to know more, CCP Burger is giving a presentation from 1200-1300 EVE time on Friday. My personal belief is that the Triglavian Domain will feature prominently in the summer expansion.


The second item is a bit of a sad note. CCP Quant no longer works at CCP.

So long and thanks for all the fish! @EveOnline #tweetfleethttps://t.co/4XDiDNEMFX

— Ex-CCP Quant (@CCPQuant) April 8, 2018

CCP Quant left a going away post on the official forums.

Hi guys,

Back in January I resigned from my position as Data Scientist at CCP, and now I’ve worked my notice. It’s been 6 years since I joined CCP and I can honestly say that EVE’s awesome player-base was a large factor in me staying for this long. Having played EVE so long, and sharing your passion for EVE Online has definitely made my job easier, but also in many ways harder.

I’ve tried unsuccessfully explaining to my friends and family how it feels to work for a video game company with so many passionate players, not to mention their unending love for graphs and data. Some of whom you get to meet at player gatherings, present to them on stage (clothed or not), be a guest on their tv/radio shows, and just be able to play a role in this awesome community. I’ve made some good friends amongst you guys, and am really going to miss you. A special love to my pub-crawling teams and every one of you I’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to! Maybe I’ll see some of you one last time on fanfest this year, as a player.

Also, worry not for I have left the Monthly Economic Report in the good hands of CCP Larrikin!

-Ex-CCP Quant

Maybe I'll run into Quant at Fanfest and I'll get to tell him in person, but he'll be missed.

I'll try to post more than normal during my trip. For now, I have to pack up my laptop and head to the airport.

Questions Going Into Fanfest 2018

I land in Reykjavik Monday to attend my seventh Fanfest. Over the past two years the quality of the event went down as the organizers tried to make Fanfest more like EVE Vegas. Having travelled to Las Vegas three times for the “North American Fanfest,” I can state I liked the 2012-2015 era Fanfests much more than any of the EVE Vegas’ I’ve attended. The older events featured the debut of a lot of information destined for the upcoming summer expansions as well as longer term plans. Admittedly, those longer-term plans often either failed to materialize or disappointed when finally introduced. But the parade of developer presentations introducing upcoming content meant I didn’t have many blank slots in my schedule. Last year, I think I only attended a handful of events after the keynotes Thursday evening. If I had attended for the first time in either 2016 or 2017, I probably would not have made a second trip.

I have hopes this year’s event will see a return to its pre-2016 form. The latest content drops on Tranquility, despite having a major impact on game play, were mostly quality of life fixes. The EVE chattering class and gaming media alike really have no idea what will emerge from Reykjavik in a week’s time. I know I don’t have much of an idea. So instead of trying to present a preview of Fanfest 2018, I’ll just mention what news I hope to see everyone talking about afterwards.

EVE Online

CCP’s flagship game EVE Online should have the most stage time, even if the game doesn’t provide the biggest headlines. I just made a prediction, but I foresee the gaming media setting aside the future of a 15-year-old game in favor of the new shiny. The EVE chattering classes will no doubt disagree with the gaming media, with limited one-way sniping to follow. But enough with the predictions.

What is coming in the summer expansion? Last year, CCP stated it would continue with its five-week development cycle but would group new content into expansions when doing so made sense. With the dearth of news about truly new content over the past several months, I have the feeling CCP will announce a named expansion for this summer, launching on 29 May. The big question? What features will we see? Or am I giving CCP too much credit for its ability to keep secrets?

Any advancements in the NPC AI? Every time CCP introduces a new race (Sleepers, Drifters) or new PvE content (NPC mining fleets, pirate Sotoyos, Resource Wars), the artificial intelligence driving the NPCs takes a step up. With the latest lore storyline seeming to introduce a new race/NPC faction, the Triglavian Domain, I’m anxious to see what advancements has in store for us in the short-to-medium term future.

What is the status of Project Discovery? The latest iteration of Project Discovery, the search for exoplanets, is approaching the one year mark. CCP and MMOS have given updates throughout the year, but to see a presentation on whether players discovered a real world exoplanet. I also want to hear the future of Project Discovery. Will players keep searching for exoplanets or has MMOS presented CCP with a new citizen science project suitable for inclusion into EVE Online? The answer is kind of important, as Project Discovery is the source of player-flyable CONCORD ships. I’m sure market traders, at the very least, want to know.

Who’s running for CSM? CCP Guard tweeted out that 52 players submitted applications to run in the upcoming election for the 13^th Council of Stellar Management. So far, only 23 potential candidates have posted a campaign thread on the official EVE Online forums. Not only do I want to know so I can start doing a little analysis, but I need to know so I can update my election site.

Other CCP News

Project Foundation. Introduced to the world as Project Aurora in October at EVE Vegas, Project Foundation is a mobile game CCP partnered with [INSERT COMPANY NAME] to develop based on EVE. I played an alpha version of the game at EVE Vegas in October. The battery usage alone led me to uninstall the game before the convention ended. Will CCP announce the release of the game at Fanfest? Or will CCP test the game at a second player event?

Project Nova. Project Nova is the code name for the FPS game CCP partnered with Sumo Digital to develop as the successor to DUST 514. Sumo Digital is also the company that purchased CCP’s VR development studio in Newcastle. CCP created a little buzz recently by sending out a survey to former DUST 514 players asking about Project Nova. I would not be surprised if CCP introduced some gameplay footage from the game.

The unnamed MMORPG. Players have noticed job postings from CCP indicating that the company is developing a new MMORPG using the Unreal Engine 4. When I saw the Project Foundation trademark in January, I hoped the name was related to the new game. At this point in time, I would just like a confirmation if a new game is under development.

CCP Falcon published a dev blog with more information about Fanfest yesterday. The schedule of events doesn’t excite me. Hopefully, my questions aren’t too ambitious.

In Search Of A New Mining Spot

My gameplay in EVE Online the past few nights focused on two things: Project Discovery and finding a new low sec mining system. Project Discovery is one of those nice to do things as I slowly inch my way toward earning a Marshal blueprint copy. Due to my cerebral accelerator addition, I won’t have the BPC before Fanfest, but I should before the Memorial Day’s weekend at the end of May. Looking at the material requirements for the CONCORD battleship leads to the necessity of finding a new low sec mining system sooner rather than later.

Marshal Building Materials

My current system has all the requirements I look for in a low sec mining system. Either a single station, or combination of stations, that provide a base 50% refining efficiency as well as a factory to build items with the refined ore. With high enough standings, NPCs don’t charge for refining ore and manufacturing costs are greatly reduced.  Factor in the lower system cost indexes typically found in low sec versus those found in high security space and I much prefer building things in low.

I prefer to mine in a system with a 0.1 or 0.2 security status as the ore is much better, especially in Minmatar and Caldari space. Part of my rationale for mining in low sec is the availability of ore in the asteroid belts that provides nocxium and zydrene. In Minmatar and Caldari space, the ore providing those minerals is hedbergite, which I prefer over the hemorphite found in Amar and Gallente systems due to the higher concentration of isogen found in the ore. But don’t feel sorry for the largest two NPC empires as 0.3 and 0.4 systems in Amar and Gallente space contain jaspet. As a Minmatar loyalist, I get irritated sometimes when I think about how kernite, the ore added to Minmatar 0.3 and 0.4 systems to make them more valuable, appears in Amar 0.5-0.7 high sec systems. Grrr CCP!

The reason for looking for a second low sec mining system is the real reason I should say, “Grrr CCP!” The same NPC factions I maintain good standings with to use their manufacturing and refining facilities also happen to send out mining fleets. The NPCs like to mine around their stations, especially the ones containing factories. The fact they do makes total sense as I also like to mine around their factory stations. Unfortunately for me, the NPCs operate in the EU time zone and I live in the US. When I go out every so often to check to see if the NPCs saved me some rocks, I often see the Angel Cartel sitting in space with nothing else around except the warp-in beacon. Without the backdrop of an asteroid belt, the NPC pirates look a little silly.

Using Dotlan helps to find suitable systems. The in-game map might work, but after 8 ½ years of playing EVE, I still don’t know how to use CCP’s product. Besides, after CCP nerfed the agent finder functionality, Dotlan is a much more reliable source of finding agents in a distant region. I narrowed down my areas of interest down to four systems based on my criteria along with additional information like the traffic flowing through the systems. New Eden has many more, but I already had some familiarly with the systems so had some idea of the geography.

I woke up a couple hours before downtime Tuesday morning and did a little sightseeing. I made sure I had a few options for refining, both from NPC stations and some local refineries who might take in a wandering stranger for a little bit of ISK. I checked on basic items like the distance of the asteroid belts to stargates. Citadels make the terrain potentially a little more hazardous, but no risk, no reward.

Out of the four systems, I had a mining ship and some gear in two of them. So of course, I chose one where I had no presence, not even a fedo. I once thought about establishing some planetary interaction colonies in the area, so that option is also available if I decide I hate myself that much. And if I’m feeling lazy, I might even do some ninja mining in the local wormholes.

I will need to set up a second low sec factory station. My existing base is conveniently located close to a lot of things besides asteroids, so moving out still doesn’t make much sense. Or maybe I’m just lazy and don’t want to move a massive amount of minerals. I still have a few details to work out, but for now I think I will find myself spending a lot more time in low sec, especially after I return from Fanfest.