EVE Online's Capsuleer Day Now A Month-Long Event

When I started playing EVE Online almost 15 years ago, Capsuleer Day was a one-day event marking another year of the game's operation. By last year the event extended to 28 days (2 May to 30 May). Players chose who to run sites for, the Society of Conscious Thought or the Guri Malakim pirate cooperative. In a move I approve of, not only has CCP extended the event an additional two days, but mixed up the content as well.

In the 20th anniversary event, players chose their faction and then proceeded to interact with 4 sites, 2 combat and 2 hacking. The combat sites limited ship sizes to battlecruiser or smaller. According to the news article I saw on the launcher, the developers expanded the ways players can engage with the event.

For the entire month of May, New Eden will be brimming with exciting adventures. Log in daily for exclusive SKINs, boosters, and a trove of Skill Points. Engage in a spectrum of seasonal challenges—combat, exploration, hacking, manufacturing, and market trading—to accrue points for even more unique and lucrative rewards. Beyond this bounty, Omega pilots gain access to further riches: over 650,000 Skill Points, 26,500 EverMarks, and coveted SOCT ship hulls, among others. Omega status unlocks the full depth of the Capsuleer Day event’s offerings, enhancing your capabilities and ensuring the richest haul of rewards from the abyss.

Yes, I know the event description contains a pitch to upgrade to a paying account. But the last time I can remember manufacturing and market trading being part of one of the major, non-storyline events was the Dr. Who crossover event back in the beginning of 2022. The devs tried introducing a market component into the event, but the crossover appeared in the middle of the unsuccessful effort to convince players that introducing NFTs, blockchains, and play-to-earn mechanics into EVE was a great idea. The idea fortunately failed, Pearl Abyss coincidently named a new CEO in March 2022, and Hilmar's cutting edge ideas were shifted to Project Awakening instead. So a little push for paying players, in comparison, is not so bad.

Over on the event page, CCP gave an overview of the event. I found a couple of hints in the description.

Massive energy discharges emanating deep from within Abyssal Deadspace have prompted The Society of Conscious Thought to raise a call for daring pilots bold enough to venture into the abyssal unknown to recover valuable data and technology. Explore newly surfaced Collapsed Conduits, take on Triglavian or even Drifter enemies for the chance to recover priceless loot and filaments from the battlefield to dive deeper into the abyss.

• Perilous adventures for capsuleers of all experience levels
• Exciting new combat, exploration & manufacturing challenges
• Earn blueprints and rare materials that give access to Abyssal Battlefields

The first thing I noticed was no mention of market trading. Are we already getting a bait and switch? Is the market portion just buying items off the market to get access to the Abyssal Battlefields? I hope not.

Next comes "newly surfaced Collapsed Conduits". From the sounds of the description, players afraid of the crushing cost of defeat (literally) of normal Abyssal sites can get an introduction to this type of gameplay by visiting Treacherous Collapsed Conduits, found on the ship scanner. Players can also scan down Desolate Collapsed Conduits and hack cans for the event goods as well.

What are the Abyssal Battlegrounds? Apparently players will have the capacity to manufacture their own filaments in order to access the top end sites of the celebration.

Of course, players will want to know what the rewards are. For those who don't want to log in, CCP is giving out prizes for those who watch Twitch. I'm not sure if one must watch CCP's Twitch channel or any EVE streamer will suffice. And if anyone from CCP is reading this post, could you please list the members of the Partner Program someplace? Thanks in advance!

The Twitch rewards are a Prophecy Navy Issue Arkombine Arisen SKIN and a mysterious booster crate holding one of the following:

• a random Agency dose
• a random Quafe booster
• a random Starsi booster
• a random Antipharmakon booster

What is an EVE event without login rewards? We don't know the exact rules yet, but the event page does show the following for Omega accounts:

• 650,000 skill points (125,000 for alpha accounts)
• 26,500 EverMarks
• Zirnitra Capsuleer Day XXI SKIN
• Maller Capsuleer Day XXI SKIN
• A variety of boosters
• Capsuleer Day Fireworks

Last, but not least, come the actual event rewards. I'm not going to lie, the rewards don't sound bad. Plus, items that drop in the sites can be sold. That's one thing that irritates me about the daily login rewards. The boosters and ship SKINs are bind on acquire. Now maybe some SKINs will show up on the market. Here's the list from the event page.

• Seasonal challenge rewards include a Glamoreux Booster crate, boosters, SKINs and Filament crates
• Loot includes Capsuleer Day boosters, new Capsuleer Day SKINs and more!
• Snag glorious fireworks on the Alpha DLI reward track
• Omega rewards include EverMarks, SKINs, SoCT ship hulls, and boosters
• Filaments, SKINs and boosters found in loot drops from NPCs can be sold on the market
• Amazing new Capsuleer Day XXI SKINs await!

All in all, I think a credible event. The format is the same tried and true seasonal event format, but the content is new. I'm most eager to see what the art department has done with the new Collapsed Conduits. I'm also looking forward to getting more Society of Conscious Thought ships. The ships are a staple of Capsuleer Day events and I'm glad to see CCP maintaining the tradition. I'm also looking forward to seeing if the industry and market elements work out.

I do have one last thing to say. CCP allows content creators (i.e. streamers and YouTubers) in the Partner Program advanced access to the Singularity test shard to create content available for release when the servers come up. Will someone at CCP please list the content creators in the Partner Program so we can watch their videos and streams? By not doing so, the CCP marketing team is working at cross-purposes, promoting streamers on one hand and suppressing the content on the other.