On Tuesday Creative Studio III released the 2024 version of The Rising, a celebration of the anniversary of the launch of Final Fantasy XIV's A Realm Reborn expansion running this year from 27 August to 11 September. I always look forward to the event as the game's producer and director Naoki Yoshida always makes an appearance not only as the Wandering Minstrel, but as himself through the use of the Echo. His yearly message, while perhaps limited compared to years past, is a highlight to my gaming year.
I wanted to come up with a different way to compose this year's post, so I turned to my AI assistant Copilot. With a little prompting and some rearranging of text order here's what the Microsoft product produced.
The Rising: Celebrating Another Year in Eorzea
Every year, Final Fantasy XIV players eagerly anticipate The Rising, an annual event that commemorates the game’s rebirth and celebrates its vibrant community. This year, The Rising returns with new quests, exciting rewards, and a heartfelt tribute to the journey of Eorzea and its Warriors of Light.
Why honor Krile with a minion for this year's event?Krile Mayer Baldesion is a beloved character in Final Fantasy XIV, known for her wisdom, compassion, and unwavering dedication to the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Introduced during the Heavensward expansion, Krile quickly became a key figure in the game’s narrative.
Krile is a talented Archon and a member of the Students of Baldesion, an organization dedicated to the study of arcane knowledge. Her unique ability to sense aetheric disturbances makes her an invaluable asset to the Scions. Throughout the game’s story, Krile provides crucial support to the Warrior of Light and their allies, often offering guidance and insight during times of crisis.
In the Dawntrail expansion, Krile takes on a more prominent role as she embraces her new Pictomancer job. This job allows her to harness the power of art and creativity to influence the battlefield, making her a unique and versatile ally. As a Pictomancer, Krile can paint mystical symbols that provide buffs to her allies and debuffs to her enemies, adding a new layer of strategy to combat.
Krile’s journey in Dawntrail is one of self-discovery and growth. She delves deeper into the mysteries of aether and the ancient arts, uncovering secrets that could change the course of Eorzea’s future. Her story arc in the expansion explores themes of resilience, the power of creativity, and the importance of preserving knowledge.
As players participate in The Rising and reflect on their adventures, Krile stands as a reminder of the enduring bonds formed within the game and the shared journey of growth and discovery. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to Final Fantasy XIV, The Rising offers a chance to celebrate the past, embrace the present, and look forward to the future with hope and excitement.
Now for some personal touches from running through the event. For me, The Rising really began when I heard the music change from the normal Limsa Lominsa zone music to the haunting beginning of Answers, the song that played during climatic battle of the original Final Fantasy XIV, sometimes referred to as Final Fantasy XIV 1.0. Below is the cutscene.
The scene depicted above is known as the Battle of Carteneau. This epic confrontation took place as the Garlean Empire’s Legatus, Nael van Darnus, attempted to bring down the artificial moon Dalamud to devastate Eorzea. Despite the players’ efforts to defeat Nael van Darnus, Dalamud continued its descent.
The battle culminated in the release of the primal dragon Bahamut, who unleashed a cataclysmic event known as the Seventh Umbral Calamity, reshaping the world of Eorzea and leading to the shutdown of the original game servers.
The presence of the player in each year's preparations makes sense since at level 15, the player works to get the three major cities of Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, and Ul'dah to begin uniting by arranging for a joint remembrance of the Battle.
But at level 15, new players don't know about the events depicted in the above video. Instead, they just know about the battle from a level 14 quest. The Battle of Carteneau introduces the player to the concept of the Warriors of Light. And while no one can remember the details of the Warriors of Light, the citizens do their best to remember not only the heroes, but the ordinary people who died during the Seventh Umbral Calamity.
While writing this post, I discovered that the OST for the ending music of the event, Fragments of Forever, first appeared in the original game. Perhaps most known for a certain scene in Shadowbringers patch 5.3, I think the below scene with Alisaie talking about her grandfather, the wizard in the first clip, from Heavensward patch 3.4 fits The Rising better.
And through the research I did for this post, I believe I satisfied Yoshi-P's desire for players to look back and reflect on their journey through the world of FFXIV. I know I had some memories return from five years of playing the game. Now, go get that Krile minion.
Today I woke up to the news of a significant financial event for Cloud Imperium Games: Star Citizen patch 3.24 is live for the Persistent Universe. Not only should the release ensure positive year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth for August, but probably for the third quarter as a whole, especially if the new features are well received by the player base.
How, a reader unfamiliar with Star Citizen may ask? By doing what many companies do around a major content drop: have a cash shop sale. CCP Games holds sales around EVE Online expansions. Square Enix holds Final Fantasy XIV sales when expansions like Dawntrail drop. So why not CIG? The only difference involves some of the prices. Okay, all the prices.
A different type of patch trailer
Looking at the offers is a bit illuminating. For example, I had always heard one only needed to pay $45 to create an account and play Star Citizen. I guess to not start off in a hole a better package is required. CIG is offering a Nomad Jackal starter pack for only $76, marked down from $95.
Here are the associated ship and vehicle offers I see, in order of presentation.
C2 Hercules - For $400 a player can purchase a Hercules Starlifter C2 with 6 months of insurance. The Crusader’s starlifter chassis is tuned for heavy commercial/industrial cargo and vehicle transport. The ship's massive 696 SCU cargo bay accommodates two tank-sized vehicles and is well armed and armored for operations in hostile zones. (Forgive EVE players for snickering at the thought of a 696 SCU cargo bay considered "massive".)
Caterpillar - For $330 a player can purchase a Caterpillar with 6 months of insurance. Haul massive amounts of cargo without all the frills, bells, and whistles, although the ship's modular design, detachable cab, and a dedicated tractor beam station seem some significant bells and whistles to outside eyes. Still, the features allow for effortless multitasking and customization on the fly. The ships also have two manual turrets plus room for additional ordnance when travelling in dangerous areas of space.
Constellation Taurus - For $200 a player can purchase a Constellation Taurus and a Revel & York Hangar. The ship's 168 SCU of cargo space accommodates a huge payload of freight and ground vehicles. Once again, please excuse EVE players for snickering at the idea of a ship with half the cargo space of an exploration frigate as having a huge payload. The rest of the description sounds like marketing fluff. I'm pretty sure any ship designed for cargo gameplay in Star Citizen requires at least one industrial-grade tractor beam.
Freelancer MAX - For $150 a player can purchase a Freelancer MAX with 6 months of insurance. The ship is the classic Freelancer with an expanded cargo capacity, fuel tanks, and advanced thrusters and requires a crew of four players.
Hull A - For $90 a player can purchase a Hull A and 6 months of insurance. The Hull A is described as "The perfect ship for starting a serious career in cargo hauling." Once again, excuse EVE players for snickering as in EVE Online, starter cargo transport ships are given out as rewards from completing career missions designed for new players.
Hull C - For $500 a player can purchase a Hull C and 6 months of insurance. The marketing material for the Hull C describes the ship as "The most popular enterprise-level cargo hauler in the 'verse." The ship's iconic telescopic cargo spindle packs 4,608 SCU onto easy-to-load cargo blades. Stop laughing EVE players, Star Citizen is not only played on a different scale but is set 20,000 years in EVE's past.
M2 Hercules - For $520 a player can purchase an M2 Hercules and 6 months of insurance. Advertised as "the galaxy’s premier tactical starlifter", the ship's heavy armor protects a "giant" 468 SCU cargo bay designed to transport vehicles as large as Tumbril’s Nova tank. EVE players might not laugh as not only can the ship land on planets but the ship fits ten large guns. Still, I've spent $520 to subscribe to EVE Online for the last two years.
MPUV Tractor - For $40 a player can purchase an MPUV Tractor and 6 months of insurance. Advertised as a sturdy designed that won't break the bank, the cargo loading equipment has dual tractor beams allowing players load and unload ships with ease.
Mule - For $45 a player can purchase a Mule and 6 months of insurance. A wheeled vehicle with room for six small boxes, a front-mounted forklift allows for easy, hands-off loading and unloading of cargo onto or off of larger vessels and decks.
RAFT - For $125 a player can purchase a RAFT and 6 months of insurance. A small ship which can hold 3 32 SCU external cargo containers. Designed for a crew of two, a single player can effectively operate the ship, including loading and unloading cargo using controls from the cockpit.
Reclaimer - For $400 a player can purchase a Reclaimer and 24 months of insurance. Comparable to EVE Online's Noctis, the Reclaimer crew of 4-5 players can strip deep space wrecks of valuable resources as well as refining and storing up to a Constellation’s-worth of raw scrap. According to the marketing material, "Tractor beams, floodlights, advanced scanners, and a manned cutter make this the ultimate large-scale salvage rig."
Sabre Peregrine - For $170 a player can purchase a Sabre Peregrine and a Sabre Peregrine serial number. From the information I've gathered, the ship is a military-grade racing ship without the ability to mount weapons.
Vulture - For $175 a player can purchase a Vulture and 24 months of insurance. Similar in appearance to EVE's Venture mining frigate, the Vulture is a single-player ship specializing in salvaging. The ship is advertised as, "The model of self-sufficiency with daunting weapons, reliable shields, and 12 SCU of cargo capacity."
I know some Star Citizen players might not appreciate some of the comparisons to EVE Online ships. Reading through the patch notes led to a desire to point out how, shall we say overpriced, the ships appear to an outsider? But looking at early sales, the ships are selling relatively briskly and $500,000 in sales today is a distinct possibility.
One matter I won't poke fun at is the content players saw dropped overnight. I'll conclude this post with the patch notes for Alpha 3.24 with the wish everyone logging into the Persistent Universe don't run into many bugs.
Gameplay
3.24 fundamentally changes how players interact and organize their belongings. From Cargo, to items to ships. Freight Elevators will introduce a new mechanic for retrieving and storing larger items at various locations. Hangars will now be instanced and in case of personal hangars, persist everything within them including the newly added Hangar Decorations. Ships are now spawned via Ship Elevator and Item Banks now replace the omnipresent local inventory.
Personal & Instanced Hangars
Introduction of new tech that creates an instance of the player's hangar to allow for uninterrupted management of cargo, inventory, and vehicles. Personal hangars are found at the player's home location and allow for customization and organization of the hangar interior.
All hangar types are instanced, meaning they are able to physically stack on each other in the same location without interference. All hangar types have ASOP terminals, Item Banks, and Freight Elevators (SCU fright amount depends on hangar size). All hangar types have ship elevator platforms which will lower when players request a ship to be spawned. Any ships already on the platform will be lowered and then stored via asop. All hangar types should be accessible to party members of the Hangar owner.
Personal Hangars exists for the player at the selected home location at all times and is as big as the largest ship on the player’s account (ships purchased in-game don’t increase size of personal hangar at this time). This update includes a polish pass of minimum hangar sizes for all ships. Any items, decorations, and vehicles left inside the Hangar should persist as well as recover their state and move to new shards after a crash recovery, though objects will be cleaned up if left on the ship loading elevator.
Freight Elevators
Implementation of systems and content for players to physically load and unload cargo to and from their ships by conveying cargo to and from hangars, landing pads, garages, and docking collars. For the new cargo flow we will be storing cargo in the local player inventory and allow them to use the freight elevator in their hangar to access the inventory physically. This will be extended to cover the location inventory access that is currently handled by personal inventory. This means that anything stored to or retrieved from local inventory at a location must be accessed by the freight elevator. Furthermore we will remove the 'invisible' player inventories for vehicles in favor of using physicalized inventory inside the ship. All ships have at least some small personal inventory that the player can put personal items for easy access. Additionally, we will be adding physicalized inventory containers available for purchase that players can use to store and haul larger items in the cargo hold. The freight elevator kiosk will have added functionality for inventory management including sub inventories like these boxes so players can move things around and recall it for manual transfer on/off their ships.
Tractor Beam Use Adjustments
Tractor Beam use on the multi-tool has had its cargo mass balanced to restrict use to cargo sizes under 24 SCU (multi-tool can no-longer move 24 SCU crates) and to reduce usable distance. Both handheld tractor beams have had their movement speeds reduced.
Players can find Freight Elevators in personal and staging hangars, as well as outposts and scrapyards. Players can interact with a Freight Elevator Kiosk (FEK) to load items onto the elevator platform. Players can put items on a Freight Elevator platform and then interact with the kiosk to store items to their warehouse. Players can see information about mission relevant items when storing and retrieving them via Freight Elevator Kiosk.
Cargo Hauling Missions
With the introduction of Freight Elevators, we have created a suite of legal missions where players are tasked to move cargo containers between locations. These new hauling missions will generate procedurally across the Stanton system, seeing the player transport goods back and forth to various Jump Points, LEOs, Lagrange Points, Landing Zones, Distribution Centers, and Outposts. These missions can be completed either through the freight elevators in the player’s personal persistent hangar or through the cargo loading areas (currently exclusive to Hull-C pilots).
Mission Flow
The current suite includes Cargo Hauling missions of 3 variants: A to B, Multi to Single, and Single to Multi. Each variant can come in 3 different quantity grades: Small-Grade, Supply-Grade, Bulk-Grade. Higher tier hauling missions are reputation gated and will require doing intro and smaller grade missions to progress.
Any player with the Contract can view and request the associated mission cargo through any Freight Elevator Kiosk at a pick-up location (even a party member’s personal hangar). When requesting mission cargo at a pick-up location through a Freight Elevator Kiosk, the requested cargo appears on the Freight Elevator. Based on the Contract’s Volume token, the requested containers are capped to different SCU sizes: Small-Grade: 4 SCU containers or smaller. Supply-Grade: 8 SCU containers or smaller / 16 SCU containers or smaller (depending on the mission). Bulk-Grade: No container size limit. All mission cargo containers requested in Small-Grade and Supply-Grade Contracts can be moved by using either the one-handed or two-handed Tractor Beam tool. All mission cargo containers can snap onto a ship’s cargo grid with suitable dimensions. When all Deliver objectives on the HUD and in the mobiGlas are finished, the Contract completes.
Commodity Kiosk Updates
Players can buy different SCU-sized containers via Commodity Kiosk. Upon purchase of commodities, players can chose to automatically load them onto a stored ship at a cost of aUEC for the automatic loading service. This will take an amount of time based on amount and size of boxes, during which the ship will be inaccessible for automatic loading process (information on loading progress is visible on ASOP terminal).
Item Banks
Item Bank Kiosks exist in various places in all landing zones and space stations. These kiosks replace the old local inventory. Using these kiosks, players can store, retrieve, and equip FPS items.
Hangar Decorations
3.24 brings decorations into player's hands. These new decorations can be purchased at Kel-To and Dumpers Depot then retreived from their hangar's freight elevator. These decorations can be placed anywhere a player wants in their Hangar and have full interactions like sitting on chairs and couches (caveat that the Ship Platform will delete items stored on the ship elevator while storing ships). Hangar Decoration will persist in personal hangars but will get deleted in staging hangars (Hangars that you don't own outside of your main landing zone)
Soft Death Breaching Polish
Set default breach amount for exterior doors to 100% during soft death. Fixed up Cutlass, Freelancer, and Constellation breach amounts.
Law System Updates
It is no longer illegal to damage, destroy, tow, scrape, or structurally salvage an unowned vehicle. Made towing hostility only hostile to the owner of the ship. It is no longer illegal to tow ships outside of green zones. Slightly increased the grace period that players are allowed to tow an owned vehicle before they receive a Crime Stat in order to allow blockages to be removed. Added a countdown to the warning for towing.
Additional Gameplay Updates
Added Carry lowered FPS weapon keybind (ALT + R)
Added ESP Dampening Strength Modifiers to Game Settings Tab
mobiGlas Contract App UI Polish
Ships and Vehicles
Master Modes Atmo Flight Controller Re-tuning
Made many, ongoing atmospheric flight updates to nearly every ship in the game. This update tunes the atmospheric flight speed and yaw capabilities of ships to most ships as well as flight controller changes to tune afterburn and SCM speeds in and out of atmosphere.
Ship Cockpit Camera Polish
Ship 3rd Person Camera Updated with smoother vibration, along with the same affect changes applied to cockpit to reduce HUD movement.
Hull-C Shield and Health Updates
Removed SDFs and Shields from Spindles and Attached Cargo of the Hull-C
Greatly Increased the Hull-C Spindle Strut Health
Additional Ship Updates
Updated Aurora series and Origin 135c cargo physics proxies to help manual loading of cargo
Increased RSI Mantis Engine Attachment Health
Reduced RSI Mantis Emissions
Corrected Erroneously Fast Tuning on the SanTokYai
Fixed Erroneously Large Starfarer Fuel Tank
Reduced the Esperia Prowler's Emissions to make it more in line as a Stealth Dropship
Greatly Increased the Health on All Ship Gimbal Sizes
Increased Overall Spread Values for Vehicle Cannons
Reduced Vehicle Laser Damage by 10%
Ground Vehicles Physics Improvements Polish to help with movement and Tractor Beaming
Added many new Cargo Hauling Rentals to all Rental Shops around Stanton
Core Tech
Ultrawide UI Updates
Ultrawide UI Scaling will Now Base grid sizes on height, not width, and relative to a 16x9 aspect ratio. Stopped markers from not inheriting scale (because that breaks when aspect ratio above 16x9). Removed logic which was offsetting markers up when going more wide-screen.
Additional Core Tech Updates
Added slight boundary violation grace time to Planet Kill Volumes for vehicles. (This may help with many random deaths while flying close to planet surfaces and water)
Made Further Ship Debris Collision Physics Performance Improvements
Vulkan Performance - Reuse the GPUBuffer, instead of re-creating them to improve performance and memory fragmentation
Today I ran into a surprise logging into EVE Online over lunch: a Wednesday patch. Two weeks ago CCP mentioned a new update for the SKINR system coming Soon™. I didn't realize we'd not only get the patch within a month, but on a Wednesday as well.
As announced in the last Equinox update, SKIN designs can now be shared with other capsuleers through chat. Simply drag your saved SKIN design directly from your Saved Designs list into the chat and send it right over to your friends. Clicking on the design link in the chat will open the SKIN directly in Studio mode, which you can then edit, save, or sequence. When opening a shared design, you’ll see the original creator’s name displayed, but you can modify the design and rename it, making it your own creation. This allows designers and SKINdustrialists to spread the love, whether the aim is to create an awesome uniform to fly with friends, inspire your fellow pilots with your amazing designs, or just contribute to a vibrant SKIN ecosystem. Learn more about the intricacies of SKINR in the new EVE Academy article, and start sharing your designs today!
Reading the patch notes, making SKIN designs linkable in chat took a little more effort than I imagined two weeks ago.
SKINR - New Feature: Sharing Saved Designs
Drag and Drop SKIN Designs:
Players can now drag their saved SKIN Designs directly from the Saved Designs list on SKINR’s main page into chat for easy sharing.
Link Icon for Saved Designs:
When selecting a saved SKIN Design on the main page, a link icon will appear. Drag this icon into chat to instantly share your design with others.
Opening Shared SKIN Designs:
Clicking on a shared SKIN Design link in chat will now open SKINR directly in Studio mode. The design will load with all details filled in as per the original, ready for you to edit.
Design Ownership Display:
Upon opening a shared design, the original creator's name will be displayed. Players can then modify the design and rename it, making it their own unique creation.
But the SKINR system didn't just receive new functionality today. Five of the six defects fixed in the patch related to SKINs and the SKIN creation system.
Graphics:
Archon now correctly maps materials to the tech slot within the SKINR and previously sequenced SKINs should now match the designed SKIN.
Extra pattern projections on some ships (eg. Crane) are now correctly removed from SKINR when designing and on the resulting SKIN, and previously sequenced SKINs should now match the designed SKIN.
Wormhole auras should be the correct color again.
Shaders will now render SSAO correctly where a tiling texture is being used.
User Interface:
Fixed an issue where the Back button did not function correctly in the SKINR Paragon Hub and Collections tabs.
Resolved overflow issues on the Studio page in the SKINR when using smaller window sizes.
Not much in the way of news for gameplay, but the SKINR system is important to meeting Pearl Abyss' revenue goals of ₩20 billion for the EVE IP every fiscal quarter. For those disputing the financial implications, remember the patch launched on a Wednesday.
Today's patch notes for EVE Online were accompanied by a dev blog. CCP is introducing a new limited-time feature called Deepflow Rifts as well as a revamp to Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites found in high security space.
Interestingly, the feature that appears an afterthought in the patch notes took pride of place in the dev blog. Deepflow Rifts are only described in the patch notes as follows.
Deepflow Rift sites
Mysterious rifts, seemingly connected to the depths of the Triglavian abyss, have begun appearing throughout the cluster and beyond. Though they are untraversable by capsuleers, a tractor beam may be able to dredge up items of interest from the other side.
I'm not sure who wrote the blurb describing the event, but at least the lore isn't dry.
Pilots across New Eden are witnessing a surge in hostile activity as mysterious rifts to Triglavian space have begun to appear. These time-limited Deepflow Rift sites have surfaced in both known space and wormhole systems, offering daring pilots the chance to face new challenges and claim valuable rewards. This comes amid a noted increase in Drifter and Triglavian Collective activity, the root cause of which remains unknown at this time.
Breaking the fourth wall, the dev blog goes on to give useful information about the new sites.
Beginning on 27 August, intrepid capsuleers can seek out these new rifts and engage in new and exciting activities. The limited-time Deepflow Rift sites promise significant rewards, including coveted Triglavian Survey Data and lucrative “blue loot,” but have the potential to lead to clashes with hostile Rogue Drones. Not only that, these sites will only be accessible in a certain time window, so warp in today and avoid missing out.
For those who take on the Deepflow Rift sites, it is important to keep the Opportunities info panel open. There, you will find the necessary guidance to help you tackle the rift, keep instability down to avoid Rogue Drone surges, and keep your expedition profitable.
Next come the changes to Abyssal Articfact Recovery Sites. Part of Homefront Operations. I'm guessing the game play isn't that enticing for two reasons. First, the changes seem to want to make the content more exciting. And quite frankly, the marketing hype isn't overshadowing the patch notes as happened with the Deepflow Rifts.
In high security space, the familiar Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites – part of Homefront Operations - have undergone significant updates, introducing fresh challenges and enhanced rewards. Capsuleers must now mine out the site before the timer ends. Those who find success will start the process all over again, facing off against increasingly difficult enemies, unpredictable weather effects, and shorter time limits. The further you go, the greater the reward. These updates ensure that capsuleers have ample opportunities to participate in the ongoing struggles and progress in New Eden, while also having access to valuable resources.
The patch notes went into further detail.
Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites have been overhauled:
After an initial set-up period, asteroids from beyond the rift will appear and a timer will begin.
Payouts will now be received if all asteroids are depleted when the timer ends.
If successful, there will be a short cooldown before another wave of asteroids appears.
If unsuccessful, no additional waves will appear, and the site will end.
Following the arrival of every wave are unpredictable effects and hostile NPCs determined to disrupt your progress.
Hostile NPCs within the site will no longer target drones.
The damage of Triglavian NPCs has been reduced.
Faulty Triglavian Caches now have a chance to appear whenever an asteroid is depleted.
These caches are now destructible with lootable wrecks, like in Abyssal Deadspace.
The contents of the caches have been greatly increased.
Be quick! Caches will be lost if an asteroid appears in their place, and their wrecks do not last long in the chaotic environment.
As before, a warp disruption field will be active within the site whenever at least one asteroid is present.
The longer the site progresses, the greater the rewards and challenges become!
The repair amounts of logistics NPCs appearing in all sites have been decreased.
Combat NPCs appearing in all sites will now have a maximum orbit range of 30km.
I've never run an Abyssal Artifact Recovery site, but I have the feeling the developers received a lot of "feedback" about how to improve the game play. Hopefully the feedback was polite and not given immediately after a player lost all their tech 2 drones.
Wednesday marks two months since the beginning of early access to Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion, Dawntrail. After two months I finally reached the end of the content distracting me from completing the main story questline (MSQ). Unlike previous expansions, I didn't feel a need to rush out and finish the story, pick up an adorable mount, and watch the credits roll. But I'm getting to that point.
Remembering how to fight - I did begin the process of levelling my Trust characters, beginning with Thancred (tank), Estinien (melee dps) and Y'shtola (ranged magical dps) last week and the trio reached level 92. In addition to learning how to use the left thumb buttons on my mouse, I discovered I kind of forgot how to fight. On my last run through of Ihuykatumu, I died to Drowsie, the second boss, once due to failure to dodge mechanics. I need to improve my key pressing ability in order to pay more attention to the mechanics and less attention to finding abilities on the action bars. Still, my last run was the cleanest in my Trust character levelling effort, so perhaps I'm learning.
Crafting gear progress - At the beginning of last week I had only made all the crafting tools and the five left-side pieces (head, chest, hands, legs, feet). Over the course of the week not only did I complete the crafting but the overmelding as well. Choosing the mid-tier setup on Teamcraft did help cut down on costs while still meaning I could make all the items I really wanted.
Gathering gear complete - I also managed to craft and overmeld a set of gathering gear. For the initial Dawntrail gathering set I once again used the mid-tier setup on Teamcraft which relies on grade 9 & 10 materia. I ran through my limited supply of materia and then visited my island sanctuary for more. I wound up going from over 900,000 seafarer's cowries down to 697,000. By the time patch 7.1 drops I should have over 900,000 cowries again unless I decide to add gathering points to my gear. Currently I am at 855 without food and GP does help not only with node bonuses but fishing as well.
New combat equipment - After finishing overmelding my crafting gear I made a set of the Archeo Kingdom healing gear. I do like the look, especially for winter settings. However, for running around the New World, I prefer some lighter gear, at least glamour-wise. I also went to the market board and purchased grade 12 materia to socket into the available materia slots.
I did encounter one issue. Some of the materials required to make the gear require Allagan Tomestone of Aesthetics to acquire. So instead of grinding level 100 dungeons, which I hate, I instead just bought what I needed off the market board. I only spent 400,000 gil which I made up rather quickly in selling dye from my island sanctuary.
Retainer army progress - By upgrading my white mage job to iLvl 710 gear, I could use the hand-me-downs to upgrade my last white mage retainer to iLvl 670 gear. The upgrade is significant because now all my retainers can to the highest level expeditions. Well, except for my new botanist which reached level 75 this week.
Does this mean I'm done with my retainers and can put them on cruise control? Not at all. The next step is to maximize their output, which means crafting best-in-slot gear and lots of materia adding perception.
I also need to go out and harvest every type of item available in Dawntrail. Retainers can bring back specific items, but only if the player has collected the item at least once. If I can finish the task before patch 7.1 I'll be set. I hope.
CCP Games published additional information about EVE Online'sAlliance Tournament XX yesterday. Normally I kind of ignore the event. If I want to watch health bars go up and down I'll log into Final Fantasy XIV and play my white mage job. But after the latest Pearl Abyss earnings call I have a little more incentive to pay attention to the performance of the AT this year.
On the second quarter earnings call for 2024 held two weeks ago, Pearl Abyss announced to the investment analysts on the call that the company had an expectation the EVE intellectual property would earn at least ₩20 billion every quarter. I will not go deeply into the fact this was the first time Pearl Abyss set a specific revenue target for a product or series of products in the five years I've reported on the earnings calls. Needless to say, CCP Games is under a little pressure to match its highest revenue quarter (in terms of South Korean won) on a consistent basis going forward.
To add a little more context, one of the themes Pearl Abyss stresses to investors on the earnings calls is outreach to the player bases of its games in order to increase player loyalty to the product. Greater player loyalty to the product means more revenue. At least to the overlords in Anyang. I always thought the secret to success was creating social bonds between players, but what do I know?
CCP Ghost talking about the Friendship Machine in 2019
Anyway, in the case of EVE, the two player-related events Pearl Abyss loves to highlight on investor calls are EVE Fanfest held in Reykjavik and the annual Alliance Tournament. And with no Fanfest in 2024, the marketing department should have enough money to throw a little extra at the AT this year. Add in this is the 20th iteration of the event and all forces should be aligned to make the event this year a little extra special.
The feeder tournament will take place the next two weekends, 24-25 August and 31 August-1 September. Here are the differences between the feeder tournament and the main Alliance Tournament.
The feeder tournament will take place on the Thunderdome tournament server instead of the Tranquility live server. Pilot names on Thunderdome should correspond to their character on Tranquility and the name the captain registers in the roster.
Flagships are not allowed in the Feeder Tournament.
Each team in the Feeder Tournament will have two bans per match instead of four. These will be exchanged as one ban from each team, then a second round of single bans.
There are no restrictions on ship type bans in the feeder tournament.
This tournament is now sponsored by the Guristas. As such, the previous CONCORD directives have been rescinded, reducing multiple pirate faction ship costs instead. Gallente-sponsored ships from ATXIX have had their costs restored.
The top 4 winning teams from ATXIX have been invited back by the IGC and will have no cost of entry.
The PLEX Silent Auction Buy-ins have been removed this year, and the entry cost has been increased from 3,000 PLEX to 4,000 PLEX.
Flagship rules have been adjusted to allow prize ships from the previous three alliance tournament to be fielded. Additionally, several previously restricted ships are now allowed.
The point system has been overhauled. The new point cap per team is 200 points, and multiple ships now have new unique point values.
Boosters that don’t directly impact the tournament, such as Cerebral Accelerators, are now allowed.
Instead of 4 total bans submitted to the referee, 2 bans will be submitted by both teams and then shared, followed by 2 additional bans from each team that will also be shared.
Several new ship hulls from the Equinox and Havoc expansions have been added to the tournament.
The big bucks indeed were spent to create not two but three special edition ships as prizes for this year's tournament.
The Guristas haven't hosted an Alliance Tournament since ATXII, where The Camel Empire claimed the Whiptail and Chameleon. That was 10 years ago. Now, the Guristas have returned with a bang and made some out-of-this-world updates to the original CONCORD prizes! Let’s take a look at the incredible rewards awaiting our fearless competitors and their supporters.
To begin with, the number of ship prizes has been upped from two to three! And if that’s not enough, for the first time in history, an AT battleship will be awarded, marking this as a truly momentous occasion.
Introducing the pinnacle of Guristas engineering: the Sidewinder, the Python, and the Cobra. These exceptional vessels, with significant tweaks based on the original CONCORD prize ships, will undoubtedly impress in the hands of skilled pilots. Guristas engineers are still refining the final designs, their engineers working with utmost secrecy to upgrade each ship with their own flavor. They did divulge that they would “flip the script” on the security status bonus the original hulls have but refused to elaborate further. Although tight lipped when pressed for further bonuses, they did share the core design behind the latest prototypes:
The number of ships handed out as prizes is also unprecedented. Whereas last year 140 prize ships were given out to the top 16 teams, this year the number jumps up to 385.
1st (winner of finals): 40x [Frigate], 40x [Cruiser], 20x [Battleship]
3rd (loser of match 61): 20x [Frigate], 20x [Cruiser], 10x [Battleship]
4th (loser of match 60): 12x [Frigate], 12x [Cruiser], 6x[Battleship]
Top 6 (2 teams, K.O. in losers round 6): 8x [Frigate], 8x [Cruiser], 4x [Battleship]
Top 8 (2 teams, K.O. in losers round 5): 6x [Frigate], 6x [Cruiser], 3x [Battleship]
Top 12 (4 teams, K.O. in losers round 4): 4x [Frigate], 4x [Cruiser], 2x [Battleship]
Top 16 (4 teams, K.O. in losers round 3): 2x [Frigate], 2x [Cruiser], 1x[Battleship]
The art department was also at work making ship SKINs for the tournament.
This year, the purple & green graffiti-polished SKINs are available for 4 different CONCORD ships, down from 9 last year. The SKINs will be featured on the Pacifier, Enforcer, Monitor, and the Marshal.
Ten SKINs will be granted to a team per match victory, both in the Feeder rounds and the Main Event. Some additional shine - or graffiti, depending on how you look at it - is still being applied, so the final appearance may differ slightly!
I woke up yesterday to the news that, after years of complaining from investment analysts, Pearl Abyss released three gameplay videos from its upcoming game Crimson Desert. The plan was to release the trailers at Gamescom but apparently one was released just before the convention opened.
The trailer immerses players into an intense battle against a towering beast that rules the icy mountain ranges. This formidable boss becomes more aggressive with each phase, unleashing its devastating attacks with increasing ferocity. Players will need to devise their own combat strategies, staying alert and agile to evade White Horn’s relentless assaults.
The footage showcases the fierce encounter, with White Horn using its massive body to crush players, pounding them with ape-like fists and unleashing a barrage of powerful attacks that keep players on the defensive. Adding to the challenge, White Horn disappears into the whirlwind of snow and wind surrounding the battlefield, then launches quick charges that overwhelm unprepared players. The trailer also highlights the exceptional graphic effects, including the snowstorms and mountain backdrop.
So far Pearl Abyss has released four gameplay trailers on the official Crimson Desert website. I have the feeling we've seen the last gameplay trailer until G-Star in November.
This year’s demo has been specially designed to highlight the intense action-combat mechanics of Crimson Desert. Players will have the opportunity to encounter four different boss battles, each requiring players to use their own combat style to overcome the challenges. For those who are eager to experience the exhilarating combat of Crimson Desert firsthand, visit our booth in Hall 6 of the Koelnmesse Exhibition Center’s Entertainment Area.
I found the trailer a bit "meh". Under development since 2018 and announced in 2019, Crimson Desert uses an upgraded version Pearl Abyss' proprietary BlackSpace Engine, the same engine running Black Desert Online. Perhaps my biases are showing because I've never liked the graphics or gameplay in Black Desert Online the two times I've played the game for extended periods. With that disclaimer, I don't believe the game's graphics have aged well after 6 years of development. Perhaps the graphics will improve between now and the launch of the game.
But I am not the target audience for an action single-player video game. Perhaps single-player action RPG enjoyers will find the trailers more impressive than I did. The important question is what is the reception amongst investors?
Pearl Abyss stock after Wednesday's trading
If the price of PA stock is any indication, not very good. The stock price fell 6.9% over the course of trading on Tuesday and another 2.3% on Wednesday. The stock rallied today, but as far as I know the only significant news concerning Pearl Abyss over those two days came out of Gamescom.
I have the feeling I am a bit more pessimistic than most of the gaming press. But I'm really an MMORPG player and only cover Crimson Desert due to its connection to Black Desert Online and EVE Online. I'll just ask the question many investors are asking now. When will the game release?
Looking at today's patch notes for EVE Online I only saw two items, one defect fix and one change. Both concerned the business critical SKINR system which allows players to customize the looks of their internet spaceships.
Not diving into the system at launch, I'm not sure exactly how much of a pain the defect was to SKINR users.
Fixed an issue where selecting a Pattern in the SKINR design creator did not automatically apply the default color.
The change, while labeled as miscellaneous, concerns a promotion for the SKINR system.
In preparation for another SKINR update, we are extending the Daily Login Rewards to Tuesday August 27th.
The extension of the login rewards for the event by seven days tells us a couple of things about the SKINR system. The first is that next Tuesday the developers will push out a new update to the system. In last week's news article CCP gave a hint as to the content of next week's expected patch.
SHARING IS CARING
Another update is coming very soon that introduces the ability to share your saved SKIN masterpieces through chat, whether you want to create an awesome design to fly with your friends, get specialized SKINdustrialists to sequence your creations, or just contribute to a vibrant SKIN ecosystem.
The second thing the patch notes indicate is that user engagement with the login event was probably below expectations. With the lack of a grace day for not logging in every day, the final day's reward, 50,000 skill points for Alpha accounts and 350,000 skill points for Omega accounts was out of reach. Why bother to log in then? The five day extension allows players to hopefully obtain the day 7 rewards.
I also wonder how the login rewards will affect the Active ISK Delta. July witnessed the largest drain on New Eden's money supply since the introduction of the Alpha/Omega clone business model in late 2016. Is the prospect of receiving 350,000 skill points for logging into the character screen seven days enough to stabilize the active daily user and monthly active user numbers? We won't know that answer until the release of the August monthly economic report in a few weeks. And then if the effort turns into a real world financial success on Pearl Abyss' Q3 2024 earnings call in November. For now we can only watch and wait.
Tomorrow marks seven weeks of Final Fantasy XIV's Dawntrail expansion (not counting early access). I kind of skipped the final fight to do things I find more enjoyable, like crafting. I guess my activities line up with what others are doing in the game after completing the main story questline (MSQ), just without finishing the story and watching the credits roll down the screen.
The MSQ wasn't that good - If actions speak louder than words, then the Dawntrail MSQ was not that good. Once I faced the prospect of running the speedbump called The Interphos I started the process to gear up instead of proceeding with my iLvl 690 gear. But if the story had really been compelling like it was in Shadowbringers and Endwalker, I would have swallowed my pride and attempted to complete the story.
The retainer army is humming along - I've basically put my crew of retainers on cruise control, except for my lower level botanist. But the levelling has slowed down and I haven't needed to worry about upgrading their gear. I also have a white mage retainer whose gear I need to upgrade. I'll do so once I finish making the iLvl 710 white mage gear. Retainers usually get hand-me-downs.
For not really paying attention, my income is keeping up with expenses. Between expedition rewards and selling dyes I made around 600,000 gil last week. The big issue is ventures. I'm under 1000 so I have a few weeks worth of ventures. Still, getting more ventures is another incentive to start levelling up my Trust NPCs.
Crafting progress - Over the last week I crafted all 21 iLvl 690 gathering and crafting tools for the 8 crafting and 3 gathering classes. I also crafted the left side (head, chest, hands, legs, feet) for the crafting set. I decided to start farming orange crafting scrips to finish off the left side before crafting the 5 right-side (ear, neck, wrist, and two rings).
I decided to craft Rarefied Tacos de Carne Asada to obtain the orange scrips. I initially just used a lot of grade 10 materia in my new left side gear to get my crafting level up high enough to craft the items. Once I had the materia I melded (and overmelded) my gear and continued farming for scrips. I also used spiritbond potion to get some additional materia.
I cobbled together two macros to make the crafting easier. I discovered back in Shadowbringers that using macros keeps my hand from becoming sore. And farming the scrips required hours of crafting. Here are my macros:
Admittedly I did not fully test the minimum stat requirements, but I believe having 4870 craftsmanship, 4353 control, and 568 crafting points should run the macros successfully. That's without food or medicine so if a crafter is close go ahead and eat. I also used HQ Dark Rye Flour, which is an level 74 item so extremely easy to make for a level 100 crafter.
FFXIV macros only hold 15 lines so I had to split the macro in two. I do like the sound effects at the end to let me know to press the next button.
Next up is purple scrip farming. I'll need to do a lot of FATEs and other farming to get enough Alpaca Fillets to get enough purple scrips to get the grade 11 materia I'll need to finish off the crafting set. Once I purchase enough grade 11 materia I'll finish up making the rest of the set and pentameld the pieces.
A new crafting place - I decided I didn't want to grind the orange crafting scrips in either Tuliyollal or Gridania so I travelled to Solution Nine and set up shop in front of the vendors. I like the artwork and the music but the location was missing one thing: a market board. If the place was a little busier like Radz-at-Han in Endwalker I'd gladly sit in the location and craft all day.
Last week Pearl Abyss disclosed on its latest earnings call a quarterly revenue goal for the EVE IP of ₩20 billion. Until CCP Games releases Galaxy Conquest and Vanguard the Pearl Abyss subsidiary will rely on the SKINR system to try to even out the revenue dips in quarters in which expansions are not launched.
The SKINR system allows players to create and distribute their own unique ship cosmetics, called SKINs, both within their corporations and alliances and on the in-game market. Real life currency, in the form of PLEX, is involved in the acquisition of various resources like Kerr Sequencers (used for Nanocoatings), Fermionic Sequencers (used for Metallic Nanocoatings), and Alignment Sequencers (used for Patterns). While some of these resources are available through playing the game, others are limited to the in-game New Eden Store that operates using PLEX. Also, some resources are easier to obtain through the NES than through game play.
Yesterday the developers released a new set of updates to the system. In a news article, the developers described the effort thusly:
The ongoing effort to create new career and specialization opportunities for budding SKINdustrialists continues today with a new Equinox update. Several alterations were made in the last update on 25 July, including modifications to the cost and time requirements associated with SKINR, and a new skill that reduces Paragon Hub vendor fees. Today’s update continues that trajectory, adding the ability to try out any design elements in your creations and apply all nanocoatings to any slot, as well as several quality-of-life improvements. Furthermore, for the next seven days, you can claim daily SKINR-themed rewards. At the same time, work continues on other important updates to Equinox, such as Skyhook raiding and more.
All design elements, owned or unowned, are now available to preview in the SKINR Studio. Unowned design elements that are available in the Paragon Hub can now be purchased directly during design creation.
Can toggle between limited/unlimited versions (if owned) on a design element in slot in the SKINR Studio.
Can now directly activate nanocoatings/patterns/metallics when purchasing them from the Paragon Hub.
Nanocoatings are now automatically sorted by hue in the SKINR Studio when creating SKIN designs.
All nanocoatings and metallic design elements can be placed into all slots including the Tech area.
A popup on hover is now present for all design elements in the designer slot panels with the element name and rarity information.
Now have the option to cancel their own ongoing SKIN listings.
Upon cancelling, only the escrowed SKIN licenses are refunded - the currency spent for the HUB Listing Costs are not.
Until August 21st, a special set of login rewards will be available for players who log on. Rewards include Sequence Binder Welcome package and components for SKINR Ship Personalization, up to 200K skill points, and boosters.
One item of interest involve the login rewards. Normally if 7 days of rewards are offered, a player does not have to log in all 7 days. Usually the time period is 10 days to allow for players who don't log in every day. Not for the current promotion. Miss a day and miss out on 350,000 skill points.
On Pearl Abyss' Q2 2024 earnings call last week investors were told the South Korean game company had received a license in June for Black Desert Online to operate in China. But players in the People's Republic should not plan on playing just yet, as Pearl Abyss and its Chinese partner plan on conducting technical tests and a marketing campaign during the current financial quarter.
Now, I thought the timing of the release was rather slow as the company mentioned plans to expand BDO into the Chinese market on the Q4 2023 earnings call. On an earnings call on 10 May, analysts on the call were informed that all the necessary paperwork had been submitted and the company was just waiting on approval.
At the time I noted Pearl Abyss was not using one of the big Chinese tech/gaming firms like NetEase, the company CCP Games uses as its publishing partner for EVE Online and EVE: Echoes.
The analysts seemed interested in two subjects. The first is the progress of introducing the PC version of Black Desert Online into the People's Republic of China. The latest progress report is that all paperwork was turned into the authorities and the waiting begins for approval.
Stepping outside the presentation, Pearl Abyss' optimism in not misplaced. In January, the Chinese government approved 115 new video game titles, the largest amount in 18 months. Pearl Abyss' partner in the People's Republic, Snail Games China, is not the biggest player in the Chinese market but has not incurred the wrath of the regime either.
That changed less than three weeks later at Spark 2024 as Tencent revealed Black Desert Online as part of its gaming lineup in China. Nine days later, Pearl Abyss announced that Black Desert Online was among the 15 foreign video games approved by the China’s National Press and Publication Administration.
I didn't realize Pearl Abyss had switched partners in China, but I'm not surprised. And with very limited time between the announcement of the deal and granting of the license, I wouldn't count on BDO operating in China this year. The Spring Festival holiday and Lunar New Year run from 28 January to 3 February in 2025 so I think a December or January launch makes sense, which means the game may not launch in China until 2025.
While CCP's overlords in Anyang, South Korea are basking in the EVE IP's financial performance in the second quarter, clouds appeared on the horizon today in the form of EVE Online's monthly economic report (MER) for July. Specifically I'm looking at the 6.3% of ISK that left the New Eden economy as measured by the Active ISK Delta.
Sinks, Faucets, and 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 July, 141.5 trillion ISK disappeared from the game economy from the movement of players into and out of the game. The change turned the Active ISK Delta from the 6th biggest ISK faucet in June (4.7 trillion ISK, tied with skill books) to the largest ISK sink in July by a very large margin.
Active ISK Delta in the Second Expansion Era
That the game experienced a larger than normal Active ISK Delta following an expansion launch month is expected. The size, though, is historic. Since the beginning of the Alpha and Omega free-to-play era at the end of 2016, July's Active ISK Delta is the largest amount of ISK removed from the economy.
Most ISK lost due to player inactivity/quitting since introduction of Alpha clones
In percentage of the money supply removed in a single month, however, the record still is held by January 2019 in which 7.2% of the ISK was lost due to players leaving the game or GM actions.
The big decline probably isn't that unexpected to long time EVE players. The summer slump is a well-known phenomena. And with the return of the biannual expansion, the natural decline the following quarter is just amplified in the 3rd quarter. But I don't think our overlords in Anyang realize the natural cycles in EVE.
Listening to the earnings call Wednesday night an investment analyst asked if the EVE IPs performance in the second quarter was a temporary peak. I believe the CFO replied that not only was the second quarter performance (the best in South Korean won since Pearl Abyss purchased CCP Games) not a peak, but the level investors should expect to see going forward.
Looking at not only the Active ISK Delta but the data from Dotlan Maps, I don't see revenue maintaining a level of ₩20 billion in the third quarter. While I foresee a good year-over-year revenue increase, a quarter-over-quarter decline of 20% would not surprise me. For the third quarter of 2023, EVE IP revenue fell 20.8% QoQ to ₩16 billion ($11.8 million).
Last year Pearl Abyss blamed the decline of the "base effect" of the Viridian expansion. That is, returning to normal revenue levels following an expansion's launch. After last week's answer, I'm not how Pearl Abyss explains any disappointing results on the next earnings call. Hopefully the custom SKINs feature introduced in Equinox pulls in a lot more money that I think is has.
Tomorrow marks six weeks after the launch of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker. I am not playing according to how most people play the game. I powered through the content I don't really like mechanically and am working on something I really like, crafting. As I've done since launch I'm posting my thoughts and activity over the last week.
Not so critically acclaimed - I've heard and seen a lot of complaining about the expansion since I reached the gates of The Interphos and started looking around. Are these just disgruntled content creators looking for clicks or are the content creators tapping into a general feeling? I went to Metacritic to compare reactions.
As of now both critics and players agree that Dawntrail is the worst expansion. One thing I noticed is that Yoshi-P tried to use American voice actors, something not done since A Realm Reborn. But I have noticed a lot of other things to criticize. I do have to wonder it part of the problem was Yoshi-P stretching Creative Studio III too thin by trying to develop both Dawntrail and Final Fantasy XVI at the same time.
Does equipment matter? - Watching some of the criticism of players who think the content is very difficult, I get the feeling all the people saying the content is easy are using a programmable mouse. I did have a mouse with thumb buttons but the mouse was too big for me to use the buttons. I went out and purchased a Logitech G305 mouse. The mouse is less sophisticated but does fit my hand with the way I hold my mouse. I'll use the mouse as I level up my Trust NPCs to see if hardware makes a difference.
The next step in crafting - I finished levelling up all my crafting classes to the level cap last week. The next step is obtaining new gear. As an omni-crafter I am making all my own gear. People can inspect others' gear and see who made the gear. I have enough pride to want people to see I didn't just buy the gear off the market board.
One good design choice is making all gathering classes use one set of gear and all crafting classes use a second set. So I only need to make 20 items not including tools. Each class gets a primary and secondary tool, except for fishing which is stuck with a level 62 spear for spear fishing. So that's 21 additional items I need to make.
Each item has sub-components I also need to make. I made a list to show approximately how much crafting I've done so far.
In addition, Black Stars require a sub-component, Magnesia Whetstones, to make as well, meaning I made 214 high quality items this weekend. Now all I have to do is pull from the pile to make the end products.
So far I did the easy step. Next up is selecting the order to craft the items and determining how to meld my equipment the next set of crafting and gathering equipment recipes arrives in November with patch 7.1.
Regular as clockwork - Part of the reason I can delay finishing the MSQ is due to the regularity with which the devs release expansion patches. So I know I have until November to finish the MSQ. Is finishing the final trial a month or two after the final 4-character duty ideal? No. Especially where the enjoyment of the story is concerned. But I do need to get better at combat. As long as I finish the MSQ before November to unlock all the patch 7.1 content I'll be fine.
On Thursday in South Korea, Pearl Abyss held its earnings call for the second quarter of 2024. The company experienced a quarter-over-quarter revenue decline of 4.2% down to ₩81.8 billion ($59.6 million), although the total was up 4.3% compared to Q2 2023's revenue of ₩78.4 billion ($59.6 million).
The ₩81.8 billion of revenue recorded last quarter was the second lowest amount since the first quarter of 2018 which recorded ₩75.4 billion ($70.3 million). In addition, Pearl Abyss recorded another operating loss, the third in the past five fiscal quarters. While a ₩5.8 billion ($4.2 million) loss is bad, the amount was less than half the ₩14.1 billion ($10.7 million) recorded in the second quarter of 2023. The CFO explained the losses were due to Pearl Abyss not capitalizing development expenses during the past quarter. When asked by a financial analyst if the situation would improve in the second half of 2024, the CFO left open the possibility of future operating losses as the company continued to work on developing games.
After a good first quarter the Black Desert IP experienced an 11.3% revenue decline down to ₩60 billion ($43.7 million). Still, year-over-year revenue increased by 6.2%. But surrounding news was not very good. Despite receiving a license from the Chinese government in June to operate Black Desert Online on the mainland, the game will not operate in China in the third quarter. The company did state they hoped to launch shortly after Chinese Thanksgiving, which this year is in mid-September.
In other Black Desert news, Pearl Abyss is still working on upgrading Black Desert Console to run on the latest generation of consoles. As BDC is the only game running on consoles, we know the console version experienced a 21.4% revenue decline quarter-over-quarter.
On the other hand, the EVE IP did very well in the second quarter based on the Equinox expansion. Quarter-over-quarter revenue increased by 20% in South Korean currency or 16.3% in U.S. dollars. The ₩21.6 billion ($15.7 million) is the highest quarterly revenue in South Korean won since Pearl Abyss acquired the Icelandic game studio in October 2018. The company does use U.S. dollars in its financial reports, so the $15.7 million in the second quarter is only the most since Q3 2021.
When the subject turns to new games, CCP Games is working on three out of the four games currently under development. EVE: Galaxy Conquest is still on track to launch in the second half of 2024. The first person shooter EVE: Vanguard is undergoing public testing and will introduce a new map during the third quarter. Finally, Project Awakening, CCP's blockchain game under development, is undergoing player testing.
One of the analysts on the call asked if the revenue trend for EVE is a temporary thing and where the company expected revenue to eventually settle. The company indicated it expects the revenue to reach ₩20 billion every quarter.
After years of asking, analysts finally received news on Crimson Desert. Pearl Abyss will take 30-minute playable demo to both Gamescon in two weeks and G-Star in November. The company also plans to show an hour long gameplay video at future conventions. The executives on the call would not give out possible release dates, referring the analysts to watch for announcements from the Crimson Desert marketing campaign.
A note about currency conversions.
All currency conversions in this blog post were performed using the rates displayed on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis website using the average quarterly exchange rate. As a check on the accuracy of the methodology, I compared the revenue amounts listed on the quarterly investment calls of 2023 with the actual figure from the tax filings released by the Icelandic taxing authority this week. For 2023 I came up with revenues of $55,865,000 and the actual game revenue reported to the Icelandic government was $55,735,000. The difference was 0.2% more, in case the accuracy of the methodology is a concern.
Last month was the first full month of EVE Online's Equinox sovereignty system. I read and watched a lot of complaining about the changes in the Equinox expansion but Reddit and talking heads sometimes give a false impression of the state of the game based on biases. So what do the numbers show?
A precipitous drop in average concurrent users
I'm not going to lie. I can't determine the amount of decline during July using the 7-day rolling average of average concurrent users from Jester's chart. Using the 30-day moving average, used to also determine the Active ISK Delta, the decline in players last month was approximately 12-15%.
The summer slump arrived on time this year
Normally I concentrate on year-over-year numbers. I'm looking at the month-over-month data because one of the purposes of a summer expansion is to make the traditional summer slump shorter, thus keeping profits up. While apparently having somewhat of an effect in null security space, we see the summer slump hitting high sec and low sec PvP in July instead of August as happened last year.
Uitra still the most violent system
I did have to check the activity in Uitra to see if CCP had put a stop to whatever is going on in the system. They didn't. The number of player-owned ships dying in the Caldari career agent system only decreased by 6.6% while overall player losses compared to June 2024 fell by 22.5%. I'll wait to see if Wilhelm has had any luck determining what is occurring in the system in his summary of the July 2024 monthly economic report.
Comparing July 2023 to July 2024
Still, looking at year-over-year numbers, one can see a shift of ship kills from low sec to null sec. Looking to see if low sec activity remains low this winter is probably worthwhile. In the meantime, ratting in null security space may have declined 1.7% compared to June, but compared to July 2023 killing NPCs is up 43.3%.
Historical look at player ship losses in low sec
The below graph shows the difference between a low sec focused expansion like last year's Viridian versus a null sec focused expansion like Equinox. Players seemed to leave low sec in order to check out the new Equinox sovereignty system, although the player ships killed in July was still the second highest total for the month over the past 5 years.
Low sec kills still high for the last 5 Julys
But the number of ships lost did not reach the magic 200,000 total and I doubt August or September will do so either. Will the summer slump result in people complaining about lack of activity in low sec again? We may find out if my calculated limit is true in the next few months.
Ratting was down a tick last month
Finally, the smallest month-over-month declines were seen in null sec. The number of player ships lost only decreased by 4.2% and NPC deaths decreased by only 1.7%. One of the key metrics I look at, the number of NPCs dying in null sec, continues in an upwards trajectory since August 2022. With the summer slump due to hit null sec in August, we may not see the true impact of Equinox sov on the security band until October.
