Ortwin Freyermuth Steps Down From Cloud Imperium UK LTD Board of Directors

I'm a little behind on corporate personnel movements at Cloud Imperium Games. On 2 July, CIG informed UK Companies House of the resignation of Ortwin Freyermuth from the Board of Directors of Cloud Imperium UK LTD, the company controlling Cloud Imperium's development studios in Manchester, UK and Frankfurt, Germany. The resignation occurred on 26 June 2024. I was unable to determine if he is on the board of the companies U.S. affiliate. Freyermuth remains the Vice-Chairman of CIG.

The 75-year-old Freyermuth had a long history with the film industry, perhaps most notably serving as producer of the 1997 Director's Cut version of Das Boot. Freyermuth's history of collaborating with Cloud Imperium's CEO Chris Roberts, began as a legal advisor for Ascendant Pictures on the 2005 hit Lord of War. In 2012 the pair co-founded Cloud Imperium Games, with Freyermuth becoming the company's part-time General Councel in January 2015, going full-time in January 2019.

Freyermuth began reducing his responsibilities with Cloud Imperium at the end of May 2023 when he stepped down as the General Councel, handing the job over to Dr. Martin Franz. At the same time, Freyermuth resigned from the boards of three other Cloud Imperium related companies, Roberts Space Industries International Limited, Cloud Imperium Games Limited, and Gemini 42 Productions Limited. 

In another disclosure revealing less involvement by Freyermuth in CIG's business affairs, this month's filings with UK Companies House also revealed that Dr. Franz was named the company's secretary on 13 December 2023. The secretary has a wide range of duties in the UK, including:

• Maintaining Statutory Books: The company secretary is responsible for maintaining essential records, including registers of directors, secretaries, shareholders, and debenture holders. These records help track the company’s ownership structure and legal obligations.
  
  
• Organizing Meetings: The secretary arranges board meetings and annual general meetings (AGMs). This includes issuing proper notices, preparing agendas, and recording minutes during these meetings.
  
  
• Filing Annual Returns: The company secretary ensures that the company complies with legal requirements by filing annual returns at Companies House. These returns include financial statements, directors’ reports, and auditors’ reports.
  
  
• Compliance with Statutory Regulations: The secretary advises the board on governance matters, ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory obligations. This includes filing accounts, holding shareholders’ meetings, and safeguarding company documents.
  
  
• Communication with Shareholders: The secretary facilitates communication between the board, upper management, non-executive directors, and company committees. They play a crucial role in maintaining transparency and effective communication within the organization.
  
  
• Signing Legal Documents: The company secretary may sign legal documents on behalf of the company, such as contracts or agreements.
  
  
• Securing Legal Documents: Safeguarding important legal documents, including the company’s articles of association, is part of the secretary’s responsibilities.

I was under the impression that up until now Freyermuth handled many of those tasks. 

One final item. In the history of CIG major shareholders have always either had a seat on the board of directors or a representative sitting on the board. Freyermuth is the third largest shareholder in CIG behind Chris Roberts and Clive Calder with an 8% stake and no longer has a seat at the table. Does that mean Freyermuth is on his way out of the picture? At 75 years, he might be tired of it all and want to enjoy a long retirement.

EVE: Equinox Patch Notes And Plans For Null Sec, Daily Quests, And SKINs

CCP over the past few months has moved their main patch day from Tuesdays to Thursdays. The dev blog for today's patch notes didn't only cover the contents of the patch but included upcoming plans. I'm guessing the developers expected a better reception from players for the Equinox changes than what actually occurred.

Player counts are down since Equinox launched

Following all the feedback the developers received post-launch, CCP is going to address three key areas:

• Further improving and balancing the Equinox sovereignty system and structures. 
• Balancing and improving the AIR Daily Goals experience. 
• Improving the SKINR experience for both casual designers and dedicated SKINdustrialists. 

I've spent most of the last month playing Final Fantasy XIV so I'm a little more dethatched from null sec life than usual. Is the main concern about the gameplay around raiding orbital skyhooks? I thought the concerns were of a more economic nature.

The new anomalies saw significant enhancements in last week’s update, and work is already underway to make further improvements and balancing changes to the new sovereignty system and structures. The primary focus is on the orbital skyhook, with the goal of improving the balance between raiders and defenders to ensure that defenders do not feel compelled to take extreme measures to secure their materials, and attackers have better opportunities for meaningful engagements. 

The next issue in the dev blog concerned force projection. I'm used to force projection as an issue involving capital and supercapital fleets. From the dev blog I get the feeling the current force projection issues concern the system of Zarzakh introduced in the runup to the last low sec based expansion of Havoc. 

Force projection will also be the subject of focus, specifically addressing certain issues created by Zarzakh. The current accessibility of Zarzakh from all over the cluster allows pilots to quickly traverse different areas of space, which has raised community concerns about stifling fights and making the map feel smaller, as conflicts can be reached almost instantly through the Zarzakh shortcut. Work has already begun on changes set to be implemented this fall to ensure a more balanced and engaging experience for all capsuleers. 

Personally I think the issue began with filaments and heightened with the creation of Pochven. If the issue involved fights in low sec becoming too accessible ... well, that's the way insurgencies were designed.

Next up are daily goals. The developers wanted greater interaction with the game. With today's changes, I'm guessing players haven't jumped on the chance to do dailies.

The AIR Daily Goals system aims to bring more life to New Eden and reward pilots participating in its vast ecosystem. The goals should be fun, engaging, rewarding and accessible to everyone in the cluster. Based on your feedback several changes have been made with the aim of gathering feedback and data to inform further improvements to the Daily Goals experience. These adjustments see an increase in the daily completion bonus and number of Daily Goals to choose from.  In addition, certain goal types that were difficult or geographically challenging for many pilots have been removed, making it easier for anyone to complete the Daily Goals, regardless of location in space. A temporary weekly skill point gift for Omega pilots has also been added to the New Eden Store, replenishing every Tuesday. Balancing will be an ongoing process, and adjustments will continue being made until it feels just right. 

I was going to write a post about receiving 15,000 skill points a week for visiting the New Eden Store until I read the explanation. Here are the details from the patch notes.

• The number of Daily Goals available has been doubled from 4 to 8 active goals to pick from each day.
  
  
• The Daily Completion Bonus reward has been doubled from 5,000 SP to 10,000 SP.
  
  
• 4 Daily Goal types have been removed:
  
• Scan 2 Combat Sites
• Scan 2 Data Sites
• Scan 2 Relic Sites
• Scan 2 Wormholes

I'll need to pay attention to the daily goals to see if the options became more enticing.

Of course, the big changes involved the manufacture of player-designed SKINs. I say of course because this is the feature that most directly brings in revenue. For the multitude of players and especially talking heads who said in the past they'd willingly pay for corporate and alliance SKINs, be careful what you ask for.

First off, I have the feeling players are not participating in the feature at the rate CCP expected. Here's what CCP stated about the current changes in the dev blog.

One of the goals with SKINR for ships is to create new career and specialization opportunities for capsuleers, opening the gates for budding SKINdustrialists. We’ve heard your valuable feedback on SKINR which is already informing current and future updates to the experience. To give more players a chance to fully explore its potential, the cost and time requirements associated with SKINR are being adjusted temporarily while the impact is monitored to inform the next steps. During this period, your feedback will be crucial to help shape future updates.  

And the details from the patch notes.

Paragon Services:

• Reduced Vendor Fees from 30% to 20% for selling SKINs in the Paragon HUB.
• Reduced Sequencing Time and Cost when sequencing new SKINs in SKINR.

We will monitor the effect this has on the Daily Goals, Paragon HUB and SKINR market and continue to adjust and balance this as we've been doing with everything else that launched with Equinox.

And then we get the future improvements in the system, along with an additional change for today.

In addition, more ways to specialize have been introduced, with a new skill that reduces Paragon Hub vendor fees. Later this summer you will be able to further unleash your creativity in the SKINR Studio. All design elements will be available when designing a SKIN, whether you own them or not, and all nanocoatings can be applied to any slot. This allows more freedom when designing your dream SKINs as you can freely experiment with various elements and then acquire the necessary elements to realize your vision when you’re ready. Additionally, several quality-of-life improvements are planned: 

• The ability to share saved skin designs in chat. 
• More filters for design elements, with direct links to the market or Paragon hub. 
• The ability to activate components directly within the Paragon Hub. 

And the new skill came out but I only have details from the patch notes.

Skills:

• Added new skill “Paragon Relations” for reducing Paragon HUB Vendor Fees when selling SKINs by 1% per level.

That's all the devs wrote about, but not the only updates made to EVE Online today. Here are the rest of the changes and fixes.

Features and Changes

Corporation Projects:

• An information window will now pop up if a player tries to create a Corporation Project with insufficient funds in the target wallet.

Graphics:

• Updated Ancestral Fireclay Design Elements to proper shade of red.

Market:

• Marketplace taxes reduced to 4.5%. Down from 8%.

User Interface:

• Refactored the Colony Resources page so that it should now have vastly better client-side performance and the filtering should be significantly improved.
  
  

Defect Fixes:

Gameplay:

• Fixed a bug where if a player died to or took damage from a Rogue Drone NPC in an asteroid belt or at a stargate, it wouldn’t appear on the killmail and the killmail would be partially broken with empty icons where the NPC should have been.
  
  
• Multiple implant sets will now give FW LP when an enemy faction capsule is killed with those fitted. This affects the Asklepian, Savior, Nirvana, Mimesis, Rapture and the Hydra sets.

User Interface:

• Small Ancillary Shield Booster and Small Remote Ancillary Shield Boosters will now display their size as "small" rather than as "None noLabel".

A Short Note About Avoiding Spoilers

Another day, another technical issue. Today's was waking up to a planned power outage to fix storm damage in the area. But I wanted to write down some thoughts as I try to navigate around all the spoilers in both gaming and social media.

I realize I don't play through Final Fantasy XIV like I'm supposed to. That is, race through the MSQ, making sure to level more than one combat job at the same time. Instead, I worry about my army of retainers as well as making items, mainly food, for myself. But I like discovering new items and running through the Wachumeqimeqi Deliveries storylines. I also like playing with the new crafting skills and updating my macros. In short, I'm playing to enjoy myself and not rush through things.

At the same time, I'm reaching the end of the period I can reasonably expect people to not blurt out spoilers. Judging by some content, I should have completed the MSQ after the first week. Luckily, I'm in zone 5 and have already discovered the secondary city Solution Nine (the name is in the patch notes) so I haven't been spoiled too badly. I think.

But as a heads up, if I publish anymore articles about Ashes of Creation, I'm desperately running away from Final Fantasy XIV spoilers.

Dawntrail Diary: Hitting The Level Cap

Another week of playing Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion Dawntrail is in the books. When writing about my experiences I really want to go on and on but FFXIV is one of those story driven games. I want to give people a chance to experience the game with as few spoilers as possible. For today's post and next week's I'm going to use my free company's rules as a guide: no story elements, no zone or dungeon names, and no MSQ elements not already published by the developers. The thinking is thirty days after the early access launch is enough time. Hopefully four weeks of spoiler-free posts for those who bought the game at launch is enough time.

I will touch on some things in Dawntrail in the most general ways. Hopefully I've erred on the side of caution and won't spoil the story for anyone.

Real life - Last week's post was delayed by 3 days because I forgot to set the timer correctly. As such, today's post actually covers ten days. And what a ten days!

During the period, someone tried to assassinate former president Donald Trump, the internet melted down over the failed Crowdstrike update, the WNBA held its all-star game, and President Joe Biden declared he was withdrawing from the presidential race. Oh, and I almost forgot. Tornados swept through the area and I briefly lost power and my internet connection one night. All of those events either drew my attention or affected my playtime by delaying when I could begin playing video games.

Hitting the level cap - I reached level 100 on my white mage job after a campfire scene. I didn't really adventure a lot over the past week because during Dawntrail I've discovered I cannot have YouTube or a podcast on in the background when running through MSQ content. With all the events of the last week calling for attention, my MSQ progress has slowed.

Just because I hit the level cap doesn't mean I plan on switching to another job. One, I only have three other jobs at level 90. Two, I want to run through the MSQ completely on my main job, white mage. Is that wasteful of experience points? Perhaps. But I have enough games in which I try to min/max my statistics 100% of the time. Final Fantasy XIV is a more relaxing game for me.

Zone 5 - By not running through the MSQ, I am only halfway through the fifth zone of Dawntrail. And I say halfway through based on two things. The first is that I've competed two of the aerial current quests and found five aerial currents. The second is that I did my first level 98 quest last night.

Zone 5 is definitely an impressive place graphically. Think a less impressive Ultima Thule. In fairness to zone 5, Ultima Thule was the final zone of Endwalker so the art team didn't hold back. Still, I took plenty of screenshots.

Is the game still popular? When running around zone 5 last night I had a choice of three instances with a total of 120+ people. At least I know I'm not the only one who still hadn't reached the final zone yet.

As for the MSQ in the zone so far. I found the content interesting and engaging. So engaging I just turn all other audio off in order to concentrate on the story. Hopefully my vague views on the story aren't a spoiler.

Solution Nine - I entered the second major city introduced in Dawntrail, Solution Nine last week. Exploring around I got flashbacks to Star Wars: The Old Republic, except with much, much better graphics. I don't want to go into greater detail due to not wanting to issue spoilers.

Crafting and gathering - Activities in which I can listen to YouTube and podcasts in the background involve crafting and gathering. I reached level 100 in all three gathering classes (botanist, miner, and fisher) as well as in cooking. My next goal is leveling goldsmith. My neighbor told me he's currently farming the last dungeon before the final raid for accessory slot gear. I figure it that's the case I should try to craft the same type of gear.

I do have a strategy involving leve quests for leveling my crafting classes slowly over time while still making progress in the MSQ. Each crafting class has two possible leve quests, so I just make enough items to fulfill each of those quests three times. Last night I received two levels for goldsmith using the strategy. If I do that every night, I can make some progress while not burning through my leve allowance. I currently have 95 out of a possible 100 available.

The Retainer Army - My little army of retainers is progressing along nicely. My white mages are level 99, fishers level 98, and all but one of my botanists and miners are at level 97. I do have a botanist I started right before the launch of Dawntrail who is now in the mid-50s.

One interesting item I noticed is that my retainers still only bring back 9 silver pieces worth 4500 gill per day when doing expeditions. Which means after I finish the levelling process I can go back and pick expeditions from Endwalker if I need specific lower level crafting ingredients.

Don't forget to go home - Finally, a reminder for everyone who owns an in-game house. Don't forget to visit. Failure to visit, not just log in, for 45 days will result in losing your plot of land. I am making a visit once a week whether I really need to or not. I still have 190 aetheryte tickets from my efforts prior to Dawntrail's launch. But for those who don't, spending a couple thousand gil to visit your minimum 3 million gil home is a good investment.

Just About EVE Online Season 2?

Not all EVE Online news is published at eveonline.com. I check out the corporate site every so often as the frequency of press releases has increased over the last year or so. Last week CCP Games published a press release about a topic I had no idea even existed.

Announcing Just About EVE Online: Season Two

After a year in which Just About has paid out thousands of dollars in rewards to its EVE community alone, CCP Games and Just About are delighted to renew their partnership for an even more ambitious ‘second season’.

Just About’s innovative bounty system offers real-money rewards for what other platforms expect members to do for free, like sharing knowledge, building guides, or just enthusing about what they love.

Members benefit, and so do valued partners like CCP. In return for a fund for bounties - at a fraction of the typical marketing budget - Just About encourages the creation of amazing, authentic content, all at higher rates of quality and quantity per member than anywhere else.

In the past year, Just About EVE members have:

• Made guides and resources, ranging from an EVE Online glossary and third-party tool list to a fleet etiquette manual and a gank-avoidance masterclass.
  
  
• Created in-game content: ship-fitting guides that started on Just About and are now playable and immortalised in the EVE Online universe.
  
  
• Embraced creative projects, including amazing fanfiction, photo-essays, mockumentaries, propaganda, art, screenshots, shanties, and limericks.

The second season kicks off with the culmination of our Mystery bounty in a moment that’s been teased since the season began. Live today, a whopping $500 reward will tempt EVE players on a series of fiendish challenges both within the game and beyond, showing off new heights of our bounty system’s capabilities.

“Rewarding our community with Just About has been brilliant, we can't wait for another year! Bounties have enabled us to bring our fans so much closer, make them feel more valued and even increased applications to our Creator Program. It's been fantastic.” - Grant Tasker, Brand Director - CCP Games

The best content and conversation around EVE Online is happening on Just About, and its creators are getting rewarded for it. Isn’t it time you joined them? www.justabout.com.

Honestly I had never heard of Just About and the description in the press release didn't help a whole lot.

About Just About

Just About is a new community platform that rewards passionate communities for the value they create. The platform was founded on the belief that everyone who invests their time, knowledge and passion into a community should be rewarded fairly and treated like a partner in the community they have helped to build and grow.

I clicked on the link and what I found reminded me of one of those shady RMT currency sites. You know, the ones I used to cover back in the day where customers risked getting banned from their favorite video game.

As of the writing of this post, in addition to the $500 Mystery bounty, the site is offering a $7 prize for the best inexpensive cruiser/battlecruiser fit and $70 from editing some EVE: Vanguard game play footage posted on the site.

I did not have much luck finding information about the website. GamerIndustry.biz did an interview with the founder of the company, Rupert Loman, in November 2022. Loman was the founder of Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz and the sites' parent company Gamer Network (now owned by ReedPop). He left Gamer Network back in 2020.

From the press release, I get the impression that CCP Games is helping fund what Just About calls a Treasury for the game. Here is what Loman told GamerIndustry.biz in the interview.

"On a platform level, we're trying to build a model that's sustainable and that works and is clear for users," he explains. "So we've built a model based on a 50/50 split of revenues.

"If we bring in a big commercial partnership, half that money goes into the Treasury for that community. If content that's created generates advertising revenue and other revenues, 50% of that also goes back to the creators and people that have contributed to that. So yeah, it's about being transparent in those numbers in terms of what that will mean for an individual user."

When I take into account CCP's attitude towards blockchain gaming, partnering with a platform to monetarily reward content creators seems in line with its corporate character. Also, to say CCP's CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson is a bit of a dreamer who believes in the social aspects of video games, especially around the EVE IP, is probably a bit of an understatement. Hilmar trying to get onto the ground floor of any new idea, be it virtual reality, blockchain gaming, or social platforms, is totally in character. The only surprise is I haven't heard of this platform until I visited the CCP Games corporate website.

EVE: Equinox Post-Launch Patch Notes - Size Matters

I had heard of disgruntlement coming out of null sec following the launch of EVE Online's Equinox expansion. Null security space is a bit like Texas: everything is bigger. The spaceships are bigger (titans), the structures are bigger (keepstars), the systems are bigger (except for Thera), and of course, the weapons are bigger. But I didn't know just how bad the developers had, to use a technical term, fucked up until I read about the asteroids in today's patch notes.

In a dev blog announcing today's changes, CCP noted that one of the changes was to increase the minimum asteroid size in the new anomalies "such that it can accommodate multiple strip miner cycles." Like I've said in the past, I barely visit null security space. But I do know about how much bigger null sec asteroids are compared to those in high and low sec. A totally understandable design decision that allows null sec players to bring out their big mining toys, Rorquals and Hulks. I know, Hulks are allowed to fly in high sec, but they can't really go full out when compared to mining the big rocks in null. Having to switch constantly from one asteroid to the next is something that is only supposed to occur in Empire space.

I realize developing a game in Iceland gives game makers a somewhat unique experience, but maybe CCP needs to hire a developer or two from Texas to give a perspective on null sec. Preferably ones who wear big belt buckles.

The changes today don't just affect the size of asteroids. CCP addressed a lot of concerns voiced over the last month. First, the devs explained the changes to mining sites.

While the ability to select mineral types was an improvement, the sites themselves felt underwhelming, both in terms of the social experience of mining and in their overall value. A few steps have been taken to address this; first, the smallest asteroids have been removed and the minimum asteroid size has been increased such that it can accommodate multiple strip miner cycles. Additionally, the overall volume of the sites has been significantly increased with the Hezorime (Zydrine) and Mordunium (Pyerite) anomalies seeing the largest increase. For asteroid size, we wanted to make sure there was an improved experience compared to old Colossal spawns. The Hezorime deposit will now include significantly larger asteroids, with a single 600k m^3 behemoth asteroid and several dozen with a volume larger than 100k m^3. 

The patch notes spelled out the changes.

• All Prospecting Array upgrades
• Several asteroids have been combined so that the majority of asteroids in each location require multiple strip miner cycles to mine out.
  
  
• Isogen Prospecting Array (Griemeer Deposit)
• Total Ore Volume increased from 2,631,000 m3 to 3,000,000 m3.
  
  
• Megacyte Prospecting Array (Ueganite Deposit)
• Total Ore Volume increased from 1,982,287 m3 to 4,000,000 m3.
  
  
• Mexallon Prospecting Array (Kylxium Deposit)
• Total Ore Volume increased from 2,040,000 m3 to 3,000,000m3.
  
  
• Nocxium Prospecting Array (Noxcite Deposit)
• Total Ore Volume increased from 2,100,008 m3 to 3,000,000 m3.
  
  
• Pyerite Prospecting Array (Mordunium Deposit)
• Total Ore Volume increased from 4,500,000 m3 to 6,000,000 m3.
  
• Rebalanced the ore content of the site to a smaller overall percentage of Mordunium asteroids and more Omber and Hedbergite to improve the average isk/hr of mining in the site.
  
  
• Tritanium Prospecting Array (Veldspar Deposit)
• Total Ore Volume increased from 3,000,000 m3 to 4,000,000 m3.
  
  
• Zydrine Prospecting Array (Hezorime Deposit)
• Total ore Volume increased from 2,015,799 m3 to 5,970,000 m3.
• The size of several asteroids have been vastly increased to make this site very comparable to the Colossal Asteroid Cluster, with 24+ asteroids bigger than 100,000m3 and a behemoth 600,000m3 asteroid.

The developers also decided the new mining escalations introduced in Equinox also needed some love.

The mining escalation has also become a more significant objective to take on and complete. The total volume has increased significantly, and the less valuable asteroids have been replaced with spodumain, various Abyssal asteroids, and mercoxit, greatly increasing both the mineral yield and value. You’ll also be seeing them more often, as the escalation rate has been increased significantly.

• Mining Escalation
  
  
• Shrouded Asteroid Cluster has been overhauled and is now the Interstitial Ore Deposit.
• The chance of acquiring the mining escalation has been greatly increased.
• Total Ore Volume increased from 3,750,000 to 8,480,000 m3.
• All asteroids have been replaced with Spodumain, Abyssal Asteroids and a small amount of Mercoxit.

The part of today's patch that convinced me the talk of a return to the Scarcity Era wasn't hyperbolic chatter were the buffs to combat anomalies.

Mining anomalies are only part of the equation, as combat anomalies are also being reevaluated. The number of anomalies the threat detection arrays spawn has also been increased, allowing groups to maintain a larger population for PVE, even while running hyper-optimized blitzing setups. To reward those pilots committing larger ships and more optimized setups, the spawn time has been reduced by 40%. This still utilizes the new spawning paradigm, meaning that in all cases the new sites will respawn significantly faster. 

The above passage came from the dev blog. The patch notes included a more in-depth explanation of what the changes contained.

Firstly, we’re greatly decreasing the maximum possible respawn time for the sites spawned from their upgrades from 20 minutes to 12 minutes. For context, the old sovereignty upgrade sites respawned between 20 to 12 minutes based on the level of upgrade that spawned them, for an average respawn time of 16 minutes. This now means that there is no single case where a site from the old system could respawn faster than the same site in the new system, and the maximum possible respawn time is now 25% faster than the old average respawn time before you even factor in the improved respawning logic that the new sites use - where the time the site was spawned is used to determine the respawning time, rather than when the site was completed. Additionally, we’re also increasing the number of combat sites provided by most upgrades by 1, and also increasing the expiration time for the new capital focused escalations based on feedback we got from players struggling to complete or sell them in time due to fatigue/logistics of moving capitals.

• Capital focused escalations (Shielded/Infested Starbase and the Capital Staging/Hive sites)
  
  
• Escalation Expiration timer from 24 hours to 72 hours.
  
  
• Minor and Major Threat Detection Arrays.
  
  
• Maximum Respawn Time reduced from 20 minutes to 12 minutes
• An additional combat anomaly has been added to most upgrades
• Adjusted anomalies spawned by Major Threat Detection Arrays in drone space to increase the amount of Drone Horde and Drone Patrol sites by replacing some or all of the Squad and Herd sites.

The patch notes concluded with tables showing the contents of the new sets of sites spawned by each upgrade tier in each security band. I took a shot at making the tables more compact.

Non-Drone Region combat sites

Drone Region combat sites.

Except for the foolishness in making asteroids smaller, I'm not going to take the developers too much to task. After all, one of the big criticisms in the past was a tendency to give players way too many benefits (remember the Rorqual?) and then have to take them away. Instead, in Equinox the developers chose the other direction, acting like Scrooge McDuck and then doling out benefits.

EVE Online's newest developer, CCP McDuck

I should also add this post-patch for Equinox will make the July monthly economic report a little more interesting. Will today's changes make players happy? We'll have to wait for the July numbers to roll in.

A Look At The Active ISK Delta In June 2024

Another fiscal quarter is in the books as CCP published EVE Online's monthly economic report for June 2024 on Friday. After a one month hiatus in order to publish a series of posts on the Equinox patch notes, I'm back to look at the Active ISK Delta.

The Active ISK Delta is the net effect on the New Eden monetary supply of players leaving and returning to the game. The Active ISK Delta also includes any reductions due to any and all GM actions. In June, 14.8 trillion ISK actually poured into the economy from the movement of players into and out of the game. The change turned the Active ISK Delta from the 7th largest ISK sink in May (4.7 trillion ISK, tied with skill books) to the 6th biggest ISK faucet (behind Sansha Incursion payouts of 16.8 trillion ISK) last month.

The positive Active ISK Delta at this point in EVE's Second Expansion Era is expected. In 3 of the 4 expansion launch months since November 2022 the measure has increased the supply of ISK in the New Eden economy. While far below the mark set for the Havok expansion, year-over-year the Active ISK Delta went from a 34.2 trillion ISK decline in June 2023 to a 14.7 trillion ISK increase in June 2024.

Looking at the Active ISK Delta by quarter, the measure declined from 14.2 trillion ISK in the second quarter of 2023 to -14.4 trillion in the second quarter of this year. Equinox marks the first launch quarter since Q4 2022 with a negative Active ISK Delta. If the measure is a reliable indicator of player sentiment, null sec players weren't as thrilled to see Equinox as low sec residents were to try out Viridian and Havok.

Null sec is a place I spend as little time as possible in, so I don't know what player sentiment is in null sec. Is EVE hitting an upper limit on former players curious about the game and willing to return? Are the changes just unappealing to null sec players? I'm beginning to think the latter given what Wilhelm is posting. Putting together my monthly Dotlan data post I wasn't as confident about what I wrote as I usually do. The numbers looked okay, but I just had a feeling something wasn't quite right.

I'm still not quite sure what to think, so I'll have to wait for additional data to roll in, because I think the numbers can swing either way in the third quarter.

Dawntrail Diary - Halfway Home

Another week of playing Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion Dawntrail is in the books. When writing about my experiences I really want to go on and on but FFXIV is one of those story driven games. I want to give people a chance to experience the game with as few spoilers as possible. For the next few weeks I'm going to use my free company's rules as a guide: no story elements, no zone or dungeon names, and no MSQ elements not already published by the developers. My FC leadership imposed the embargo until 30 July.

I will touch on some things in Dawntrail in the most general ways. Hopefully I've erred on the side of caution and won't spoil the story for anyone.

Running from spoilers - So far I've done a pretty good job avoiding spoilers. I did run into a YouTube thumbnail which partially spoiled the story in zone 2, but only a segments. Also, I know there is some sort of controversy about the MSQ story. As the title of the post indicates, I'm a little past the halfway point of the MSQ. I think I might know a couple of the criticisms already, but I won't speculate on the blog until the 30th.

Earning flying - By this point in FFXIV's history, the method of earning flying in a zone is pretty set. Find 10 aether currents and complete 5 quests. One of those quests is the main MSQ quest for the zone. The other four quests appear in pairs using criteria I still don't understand. One is a single quest and the other leads to a series of quests.

I believe the story writers want the player to do the quests as they appear. I also do the series of quests although to get credit for flying only the first quest requires completion. Doing the quests winds up earning accessory (right side) items which helps meet iLevel requirements for dungeons.

I should add that doing these quests does not lead to really outleveling the content. Currently I'm in zone 4 doing level 96 quests. My white mage job is currently 97, so I'm about one level above. Then again, I haven't gotten carried away doing FATEs. If I did, I'd probably be level 99 or 100 by now.

Zones 3 and 4 - Over the last week I entered and completed zone 3 and got a fair bit into zone 4. The landscape in zone 3 is too tied into the MSQ to describe now and not give out a spoiler or two. For now, I'll just say I found myself taking lots of screenshots and not just to follow the story. Shout out to whoever designed the zone and the art team. I thought the design was great.

Zone 4 was somewhat spoiled for me from comments by someone on the media tour. Still, I've liked the content so far and the music when I first entered the zone was perfect. At this point I don't know which music I like more, that of the capital of Tuliyollal or zone 4. I do look forward to doing a lot of gathering in the zone.

Solo-friendly - As I mentioned before, I'm currently running through level 96 quests. So far, I have not run content with anyone else. The game gives the options at duties and trials but the Duty Support system also handles trials so far. Is the game easy? The last duty I ran I look 73 minutes out of the allotted 90 minute time limit to complete. I also needed to learn the final fight and not just follow Krile around, as Krile died. And Wut Lamat, our main character? She killed me by deciding to run up to me at the wrong time. Still, I didn't have to worry about others getting frustrated with my slowness of learning the mechanics.

Dressed for success - Okay, my glam is still the original Eorzean outfit I started the expansion. But I have been tempted to switch to local garb. One of the dungeons has a set I really like for glamour. Unfortunately the gear is not sellable on the market. But the end game glamour enjoyers have new outfits to earn.

My retainers - As I progress through Tural I don't have to just worry about myself. I have my army of retainers I need to level at the same time. I need to acquire a lot of accessories for my retainers. For the gatherers, accessories usually only provide gathering points. But each one can also hold a materia. With 5 slots, that totals up to an additional 125 gathering if I use Gatherer's Guerdon Materia X.

For my two white mage retainers, I was able to upgrade the gear using gear provided to me completed quests. That's right, I have shed to sets of gear already. Later on I'll set up my retainers' glamours, but for now the current gear they wear has the same glamour I'm wearing while adventuring.

I should add that the non-white mage gear I receive running dungeons I'm turning in for expert deliveries for seals. So far I've earned enough seals to purchase 200 ventures to pay my retainer army. I'm a little behind the pace as the way I'm currently deploying my retainers costs 126 ventures per week. Luckily I built up a significant reserve of ventures before the expansion launched so I don't have to worry for 8 more weeks.

For those wondering, my white mage retainers are level 95 and my gathering retainers are level 93.

Gathering and Crafting - In order to keep my army of retainers levelling I need to level my gatherers. By the end of the second week I have botany and mining at level 94 and fishing at level 96. Now that I'm looking to partake of Tural cooking, I don't need to do fishing ventures anymore. Instead I just need to look for a recipe needing seafood and fish. So far each fish caught has netted me at least 400,000 experience points.

After two weeks, the only crafting classes I've advanced past level 90 are culinarian (93), goldsmith (93) and weaver (91). I need to get those classes up to 95 to continue the next step of Wachumeqimeqi Deliveries. Until then, I made a stack of 30 Royal Toast (+critical hit and +vitality) to last while adventuring overland. I should also get a level or two for my goldsmith equipping my retainers accessory slots. Leveling goldsmith means also leveling blacksmith or armorer and I've chosen blacksmith.

I should add one nice mechanic I forgot about. Since all items gathered and crafted in Dawntrail are a higher level than my Endwalker crafting gear I am getting a lot of materia from spiritbonding. I really do need to mix up some of the medicine that gives buffs to spirit bonding to enhance the effect.

That's all for now. I do have a self-imposed deadline for writing this post. I return to work on Monday so I'd like to get as far as possible into the MSQ this weekend. Ideally I want to finish the MSQ by 30 July so I can blog about everything I've experienced. Also, I really want to read all the hot takes on the Internet. I have the feeling I'm missing out on some juicy blogging subjects.

EVE: Vanguard News - The July 2024 Press Release

Last Friday CCP Games published a press release on its website unveiling a roadmap for its upcoming first person shooter, EVE: Vanguard. In the interest of full disclosure, I don't play first person shooters. If I didn't cover Pearl Abyss' finances, I'd wonder why the company insisted on trying to make me care about a game I have no interest in playing for the last six months. But since the company wants me to care so much, I'll cover the latest news.

The new roadmap does offer up some useful information. CCP plans to continue testing and refining the new Solstice map introduced in June. The private monthly playtest periods presumably will continue until November when the developers plan to unveil a new update. Based on the past, I would guess an additional map since I think CCP would not want to open up early access on Steam without at least three maps.

As I am not that excited about CCP's fourth attempt at producing a first-person shooter set in the EVE universe, I'll turn to the press release for some hype.

The 'Solstice' era roadmap showcases how EVE Vanguard's evolution will continue, including expanded gameplay elements, enhanced player agency, and deeper integration with the EVE Online universe. Private Founders' Playtests, part of the game's gated pre-alpha development phase, will be conducted through to the end of the year.

A major update is planned for November 2024, which will introduce new features such as stronger economic links to EVE Online, a strategic deployment map featuring diverse planetary environments, engagement with multiple factions, weapon chipset crafting, and more emergent activities.

Further out, plans are in place to launch EVE Vanguard into Steam Early Access, with the exact timing to be announced at a later date. In the interim, interested players can add EVE Vanguard to their wishlist on Steam.

These additions and future plans aim to create a more immersive and interconnected experience between EVE Vanguard and the broader EVE Universe, furthering the game's evolution and accessibility.

Looking at the timeline I do wonder a bit about the presence of EVE London on the roadmap. The Vanguard development team is in London, so their presence at the event would be natural. I just don't know if Vanguard information will be presented at the event.

Finally, CCP produced a short 5 minute video covering the future development of EVE: Vanguard. The video is described as "detailing the development team's vision for EVE Vanguard in the ‘Solstice’ era and beyond, including plans to deepen the gameplay loop with more content that strengthens the connection between EVE Online and EVE Vanguard."

Overall, the press release didn't provide that much new information. I still assume a major announcement about Vanguard will occur at Fanfest 2025 in May 2025. I think the press release did reveal CCP's plans to announce the early access release on Steam in 10 months. The question is whether the company will announce an immediate release or one in conjunction with the release of the Summer 2025 expansion, presumably in June 2025. My guess is the latter based on the integration discussed in the various materials mentioned in the press release. But until CCP puts up a compelling case why I should care, I'll only follow the game's development for blog content.

The Server Meshing Wars Have Begun

Any discussion about large-scale player-versus-player fights in an MMO eventually includes EVE Online. The title from CCP Games not only holds world records for largest fight in a video game (8825 players), but most concurrent participants in a multiplayer video game PvP battle (6557) as well. Any game offering EVE-sized battles will attract players just out of curiosity.  Currently two companies, Cloud Imperium Games and Intrepid Studios, are working on a technology they believe will put them in the conversation of games capable of hosting large-scale battles.

The technology is called dynamic server meshing. Both Cloud Imperium Games and Intrepid Studios published videos last week proclaiming their progress on the technology. But before diving into the videos, I perhaps should explain what server meshing and dynamic server meshing mean in the real world.

I turned to Copilot to summarize the technology as my backend server infrastructure knowledge is from ten years ago. First I asked: What is server meshing?

Server meshing is a technology that allows multiple servers to connect together and work seamlessly as if they were a single large server. This technology is used to overcome the limitations of a single server’s capacity.

Here’s how it works:

• The system divides the workload among multiple servers, each handling a different part of the game world or application.
• These servers are interconnected in a “mesh” network, where each server is connected to every other server.
• This allows for efficient communication and data exchange between servers.
• When a user moves from one part of the game world (or application) to another, the responsibility for that user is transferred from one server to another.
• This transfer is done seamlessly, without the user noticing any interruption or delay.

I then wanted to know about dynamic server meshing and what the dynamic part of the term meant.

Dynamic server meshing is an advanced form of server meshing technology used in video games and other large-scale online applications.

Here’s how it works:

• Unlike static server meshing where servers are pre-allocated and cannot be changed, dynamic server meshing allows servers to be dynamically moved as needed.
• It allows for dynamic scaling of servers based on player movements, optimizing server resources in high-population areas and reducing costs in less populated regions.
• The technology also enables servers to stream in and out as needed, potentially shutting down unused servers to save resources.
• In the context of video games, this means that different parts of a game world can be hosted by different servers, and these servers can be dynamically adjusted based on the number of players in each part of the world.

All links, at least according to Copilot, lead to CIG and its MMO under development, Star Citizen. What led to this article was the company posting a documentary-style video about server meshing and CIG's pursuit of the technology. The video concludes with a statement about how the developers will deploy static server meshing to the Persistent Universe in Alpha 4.0 and the conditions in which the company will proceed with the development of dynamic server meshing. I liked the video for the history, but for a 13 minute explanation of CIG's version of the technology, I turned to a well-respected YouTube creator, Space Tomato.

If Alpha 4.0 does indeed launch during the current quarter, it likely will conflict with Intrepid Studio's release of its Alpha 2 test for Ashes of Creation. During a 3 July broadcast, the company revealed plans to introduce dynamic server meshing in the upcoming test. Following the link leads to the video embed on the Ashes of Creation website. Tech nerds should definitely watch the video. But for those who don't have 75 minutes, I found the below 13 minute video by Narc, a long time Ashes of Creation YouTube creator, an excellent watch.

What I found most interesting in the video was the comparison of the tech in Ashes of Creation with that in Star Citizen and World of Warcraft.

I've addressed the topic of server meshing from this post's title, but where does the concept of war come into play? While the games exist in different genre (science fiction vs fantasy) they have three things in common. First, both games are PvP titles. The second is both are crowd funded, with the Star Citizen Kickstarter raising $2.1 million in 2012 and the Ashes of Creation Kickstarter bringing in $3.2 million in 2016. The final similarity is both are much delayed from the estimated dates of delivery given on their respective Kickstarter campaign pages.

How delayed? Star Citizen famously gave an estimated deliver date of November 2014. Missing a delivery date by 10 years and counting is quite a feat. But Intrepid Studio, with an estimated deliver date for Ashes of Creation of December 2018 isn't that far behind.

And now we get to the matter of content drops. Both Star Citizen's Alpha 4.0 and Ashes of Creation's Alpha 2 were both expected to launch sometime in the third quarter of 2024. With the announcement of Alpha 3.24 last month, I no longer expect Alpha 4.0 and server meshing to launch in 2024. I expect CIG to launch Alpha 3.24 in the weeks leading up to CitizenCon on 19-20 October.

Intrepid Studio, on the other hand, has an incentive to launch its Alpha 2 in October instead of during the third quarter. The next World of Warcraft expansion, The War Within, is scheduled to launch on 26 August. Perhaps more importantly, Throne and Liberty, a game more comparable to Ashes, should launch on 17 September. The Intrepid Studio leadership might want to delay the launch of Alpha 2 to mid-October not only avoid completing with either title, but take advantage of the extra development time.

In the end, does all the fuss and commotion over server meshing really mean anything? For Intrepid Studio, I think so. The company's story will change from a company making a vaporware game to one that took the time to not only upgrade Ashes' engine from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, but also develop a solution allowing for massive fights where a much bigger company with even more financial resources failed. As for Cloud Imperium Games, they still have Squadron 42 to launch next year. The launch should make up for any decrease in Star Citizen related sales. And for the rest of us, lots of Star Citizen white knights telling us how we should think about the entire situation.

Dawntrail Diary - Early Access And Launch

I decided for Dawntrail to try writing about my game experiences once a week. Since early access for the expansion began on a Friday, the end of the week is when I'll make my posts. The only spoilers going forward might be zone names, but for this post I'll refrain from naming zones. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone and at this point, heavy self-censorship is justified.

I won't run through a day-by-day breakdown of my experience. Instead I'll just put down my feelings on certain subjects.

Login and stability issues - FFXIV's Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida took what happened during the launch of Endwalker badly and as a personal failure. The steps he took over the last two years, and especially for the launch of Dawntrail, showed how important a repetition of Endwalker did not happen again.

I'm happy to report on a personal level I had a much better experience. The biggest login queue I faced was on the first day of early access at a little over 2600 and I got into the game within 15 minutes. I may have experienced a 750 player queue on the second day, but I forgot to record the length. For the rest of the week, including the official launch day, I never experienced a queue of over 80 and was into the game within 5 minutes.

I don't want to claim no issues occurred on launch. especially players on XBox. But I think Yoshi-P needing to hand out 2 days of gametime to affected players is a vast difference from Endwalker, where he handed out 3 weeks of gametime and stopped sales of the expansion.

Two channel dye system - Let's face it, an adventurer needs to look their best for all the cutscenes a FFXIV expansion offers. I wound up picking out a simple outfit and both the tunic and boots had two dye slots. I fumbled around a bit but the system is pretty simple. Most importantly, I was able to take a grey and black piece of equipment and give it the white mage colors of white and red.

Right before accepting the first quest

I actually wound up using ruby red dye and the texture of the cloak turned the color into what I wanted. And for those who have not entered the capital city of Tuliyollal, bright colors fit right in.

The graphics upgrade - Creative Studio III took full advantage of the capabilities of their new graphics engine. I finally bought a new computer after 6 years or so because of the promised graphics upgrade and the increase in system requirements for FFXIV, along with the increasing requirements in EVE Online. While my rig doesn't meet the recommended system requirements for Star Citizen, what I have is far from a toaster. And what I have to say is, "Oh my!"

The devs decided to show off the new engine on the ocean voyage from Old Sharlayan to Tuliyollal. I have never seen a video game look so gorgeous. Admittedly I don't don't play a lot of video game, but this was special.

The lighting in a cutscene

What really impressed me is the increase in the distance objects are drawn at in the game. The below shot is from a ocean voyage cut scene, but the same occurs during normal gameplay.

I was so excited when I spotted my character

Perhaps most important, I am not running any type of graphics enhancement programs. Perhaps on older systems something like ReShade is still needed, but I'm not finding the need.

The MSQ without spoilers - I am not a player who demands lots of combat, but I found the start of Endwalker very slow. So slow that I decided to time how long it took to receive a quest involving killing anything in Dawntrail. The answer was 5 hours and 10 minutes, and that was taking out all time not spent running the MSQ.

The MSQ itself, as is the norm since Shadowbringers, split into two optional branches in order to manage server load before reuniting into a main branch. I have finished up the content of one zone and am into the second zone. As a judge of levelling speed, I am at level 93 on my white mage job.

Just as a personal opinion, I was not a fan of the female Hrothgar seen in the Dawntrail trailer, Wuk Lamat at the end of Endwalker. The story, as I should expect by this point from the FFXIV writing team, isn't as simple as Wuk Lamat was made out at in our brief introduction to her. At one point in the story, I even shouted out "I knew it!" in real life.

Role quests and the Wachumeqimeqi Deliveries - Without giving out spoilers, I want to say I like the timing on when the devs introduced both role quests and the Wachumeqimeqi group of quest giving NPCs. Basically, the Wachumeqimeqi Deliveries are the crafting and gathering equivalent of role quests. For hard core levelling and grinding a level quest giver is located between the inn on the docks and the Wachumeqimeqi district of Tuliyollal. Thanks to the natural break in the story, I chose to start both the healer role quest and the first two deliveries for each of the five quest givers in Wachumeqimeqi.

The inn - Oh my, the inn located at the docks in Tuliyollal. A five-star establishment! And the worst thing is I can't find all the screenshots I took. The inn is two rooms with a wonderful balcony views. I might write a stand alone post just about the inn room in Dawntrail.

Alpacas are not just for Johnny Depp - Up until now the most I'd heard about alpacas was in connection to the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial. But without spoiling the story, I can report that alpacas make an appearance. Remember in A Realm Reborn when chocobos were used for transportation? Alpacas are the same in Dawnwalker. 

Alpacas are a common site in one of the starting areas

A lot more happened, of course. But for brevity reasons I'll end here. Oh, and next week I'll definitely post pictures of the inn room. I kind of want to redo my cottage in the Lavender Beds in Tuliyollal style now.

A Look At June 2024 Activity In EVE Online

Another month, another expansion. In this article looking back a year compares the launch of the Equinox expansion on 11 June to the launch of Viridian (13 June 2023). I like looking back a year since the same seasonal effects will impact player activity in the same way. When an expansion occurs almost on the same date in both months, who can resist comparing the months?

Now, I did have some concerns when I looked at Jester's average concurrent user graph I had some concerns. I'm pretty sure the steep decline wasn't entirely attributable to the testing of the new map in EVE: Vanguard. From looking at the graph with the naked eye, the 7-day average dropped back down to the 23,000 ACU baseline following an initial peak of interest.

Then I looked back at the launch of Viridian and saw the same percentage of decline, just in a more compact period of time. Last year didn't have any testing of a FPS game to affect the players from logging into the main game. Still, such a decline is concerning and something to keep an eye on.

Jester's graph does show EVE maintaining a large increase in players year over year and the number of explosions recorded on Dotlan shows everyone isn't just ship spinning. Year-over-year, the number of player ships killed in high-sec are up 53.6% and not just because of increased ganking.

Yes, I realize player ship losses increased by 285% in Uedama from June 2023 to June 2024, but total losses in the high sec choke point system still only make up 5% of player ships lost in high sec. And given CONCORD probably accounted for 60-70% of the increased kills? I think increased use of visits to career agents has a bigger impact. For example, players lost more ships in the Minmatar career agent system of Malukker than the top ten most violent null sec systems in June. In other words, the NPCs are racking up a lot of kills on new characters.

I did want to look at low sec to see if the new expansion had an impact of PvP activity. At least during the launch month the security band seems to just chug along. June's 228,242 recorded ship losses were even up by 8,000 compared to the previous month. Compared to June 2023, player ship losses increased 11% and NPC kills increased by 22%. Once again, something to watch, but the activity seems on par.

Equinox, however, is an expansion introducing a new sovereignty system. How are players handling the changes? While the numbers inched up 2.9% compared to May, the big structures didn't come online until the 20th. Still, year-over-year the number of player ships exploding in null sec increased by 36.5%.

The key statistic in null sec is the number of NPCs players kill in null sec in order to help pay for their ships and modules. The number of NPCs dying rose 6.3% from May to June up to 218.2 million. The month did see a milestone reached, as players killed more NPCs than in October 2020. That month was the last full month before the developers instituted the Dynamic Bounty System. Combined with other changes, the DBS kicked off the beginning of Scarcity Era. June's total of NPC deaths exceeded that of Viridian's launch month by 49%.

Dawntrail Launches Today And The Board of Turalism

All of the preliminaries are over. Today the latest expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, Dawntrail, launches. Before going on, a bit of housekeeping. Make sure to register your copy of Dawntrail if you have early access. In one of those moves the Square Enix website is famous for, registering an early access key for the expansion doesn't register the expansion itself. I have the feeling accounting is involved in the form of counting deferred revenue. But no mater. Players have until July 5th to register their key.

Launch day is here

I will admit as I get older I begin taking enjoyment out of some of the surrounding content around an expansion launch. CCP Games did so with its Upwell Consortium website. Very corporate and in keeping with the EVE universe. Creative Studio III published its own special website for Dawntrail, the Board of Turalism's TourTural.com.

Both are trying to sell something. But where the Upwell Consortium knows internet spaceships are serious business, Tural's Board of Turalism is a more light-hearted affair as the below video shows.

Honestly, I can't wait for the new cookbook for Dawntrail bound to come out. I also anticipate a few hangovers.

From the Board of Turalism website

I also want to point out someone over in Creative Studio III decided to include a customer support chat.

Even offers customer support

I haven't tried the feature out yet. Hopefully the design is better than the typical Square Enix website I'm used to using.

I do have the feeling I'll go back every so often and see whether the website is just a bit of launch fun or a site worth checking up on. But for now, may the queues not swallow you up logging into the game.