EVE: Gunjack To Launch On November 20th

Today we are excited to announce that Gunjack will launch on November 20 on Samsung Gear VR! pic.twitter.com/s6zIqJsLSY

— Gunjack (@EVEGunjack) November 11, 2015

Image you are CCP, makers of EVE Online. Having decided that virtual reality games are the future, what type of game will you launch? Well, setting the game in the New Eden universe seems natural. And what is the first thing a new player does in EVE. Mine, of course.

That is the premise of CCP's first virtual game, EVE: Gunjack. From the official Gunjack page:

"Gunjack, coming soon for the Samsung Gear VR mobile gaming system, is a first-person arcade shooter built from the ground up for virtual reality. With its intuitive controls and intense, full-immersion action, Gunjack is the ultimate pick-up-and-play virtual reality experience.

"In Gunjack, players take on the role of a gun turret operator on a mining vessel in the Outer Ring region of known space. As part of the ship’s defense team, it is up to the player to protect the rig from pirates, opportunists and anyone else looking to take what rightfully belongs to the company."

So the player, the hero in the game, is protecting a mining operation? Is this CCP's way of saying, "Fuck you CODE.?"¹

Anyway, CCP managed to make the deadline as a launch day title for the Gear VR. I am really tempted to pick up a unit as I need to get a new phone anyway. My eyesight is going and I recently had to buy a pair of bifocals, so I could use a phone with a bigger screen.

I should add that the Gear VR is launching at $99.99, which makes the device fairly affordable.

How much will EVE: Gunjack sell for in The Oculus Store? That I don't know. But I didn't think CCP would have the game ready this fast. If I had known, I would have given the nearly finished product a try at EVE Vegas. But the early prototype I played at Fanfest was promising, so I may go ahead and spend some money next weekend when the Gear VR goes on sale.


Notes:

1. CODE. is an alliance known for ganking mining ships in EVE Online's high security space. Of course, as the game takes place in the null security region of Outer Ring, no CODE. pilots or ships were harmed in the making of EVE: Gunjack.

CCP's War On Illicit ISK: Down The Hole

Sometimes watching the black market in EVE Online ISK leads to stories. For example, watching the popular RMT trading site Player Auctions, I noticed something peculiar.

Interesting price movement

The average sell price for 1 billion ISK on the RMT site rose 50 cents USD while the price players purchased ISK in The Forge, EVE Online's main trade hub, fell by 21 cents.  A rise in the black market price while the primary market price fell usually indicates a drop in supply. In other words, CCP's security team probably took action on a major supplier of illicit ISK.

The next step in the analysis involved trying to pinpoint the time the action against the illicit RMT operation took place. The following graph gave me a clue.

A narrowing of the price

I found two time periods interesting. From 11-21 October, the 7-day rolling average of the price of 1 billion ISK sold on Player Auctions rose 7%, from $8.28/billion to $8.86/billion. But at the same time, the price of ISK purchased using game time in Jita dropped 63 cents, from $14.90/billion to $14.27/billion ISK. To add more evidence that something occurred during, a long-running illicit RMT site, ISKBANK, was inaccessible. ISKBANK made headlines back in 2011 when Eve News 24 obtained a copy of the website's customer database and published the names of all the customers. At first I believed I was just witnessing a failing site not keeping up with basic maintenance, but now I wonder if the technical difficulties was an effort to hide the fact that the black marketeer just ran out of ISK due to CCP action.

The period of 21-29 October also is of interest. The price in Jita rose due to the effects of the Bloody Omar sale, but the price of ISK on Player Auctions rose even faster. The 7-day average price on PA rose from $8.86/billion to $9.83/billion, an addition increase of 10.9%.

Over the years I've noticed that any anti-RMT action by CCP takes about two weeks to really have a noticeable effect on the market. With 21 October the date with the greatest impact, I started looking for any evidence of a major illicit RMT operation shutting down, at least temporarily, on or about 7 October. Between responses from Twitter and people coming up to me at EVE Vegas, I obtained a possible answer.

On 23 October, someone posted a message from MaxDEL, the CEO of Quantum Explosion, a wormhole corporation in the business of renting space. I got a chuckle, especially the first paragraph:

"Hello, I am known by in game character MaxDEL, ceo of one of the major wormhole corporations Quantum Explosion. On October 7 2015, CCP has banned all my accounts for the vague term "ISK Selling". For this many players will rejoice, because many pilots in wormhole space hate me, but i’m not talking about it now. Throughout my life I have not sold a single isk/items for real money, and the reason for the ban is slander. I suspect that it was deliberate in order smear to my character. A few hours before the ban, I bought AT ship (Malice) for my own isk for the future planned participation in the next AT."

Did I mention he was in the business of renting space? From what I gather, he built quite a rental empire in w-space. In fact, so good that he was getting bored. A transcription of a leaked corp meeting in April indicated he thought about the possibility of RMT.

"Maybe I will do what rest of the Russian community in W-space is doing: RMT. I really don’t have the need for that. Maybe something else. But directing a corporation with a rat in it. And I totally understand that it was I who gave this rat the password, but I don’t know who was it. I'm tired of this."

I obtained copies of the correspondence between MaxDEL and CCP Peligro that MaxDEL posted on the EVE Online forums. Committing a second offense warranting a permanent ban probably won't help the case for overturning the original permanent ban. Especially since MaxDEL apparently had a previous permanent ban overturned.

I do wonder about one thing, though. MaxDEL claims to have never sold ISK or items. But did he offer to rent out a wormhole for real world cash? According to interviews Elise Randolph and Farasoloni gave to TMC in 2013, Russians who had rented space from Solar inquired about paying their rent to Pandemic Legion using Paypal. If the same occurred with MaxDEL, and he either solicited rent or accepted it using the in-game chat, then CCP has the logs of the infraction. In which case, goodbye MaxDEL.

So, I have an event that occurred when I expected one that would affect the black market. The final question is: did MaxDEL really have enough ISK to affect the market? In his Eve-O forum post from 23 October, MaxDEL states he has more than 1.5 trillion ISK in the wallets of his banned accounts. To put that amount in perspective, the average monthly amount of ISK sold in the 3rd Quarter of 2015 was ... 1.5 trillion ISK. So the answer to my question is yes, MaxDEL potentially had enough ISK to supply the black market with a not insignificant amount of ISK if he so chose. And with the market reaction, I believe CCP Peligro prevented a lot of ISK from getting to the market.

As always, a lot of the evidence I collect is circumstantial in nature. But given what I've uncovered, I wouldn't bet that CCP Peligro got this case wrong.

CCP, Hanlon's Razor, And The Price Of PLEX

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

- Hanlon's Razor

Before EVE Vegas, I pointed out the terms of the PLEX sale associated with the Bloody Omar in-game event. I thought, based on the web page, that the cost of PLEX was about to rise.

To me, the page seemed to indicate that the price of PLEX would increase after the sale ended. I circled the prices on the screenshot. Those prices would indicate to someone purchasing PLEX that the regular price of 2 PLEX was $39.90 and 6 PLEX cost $119.70. A player who had never purchased PLEX before would see the "Save $5.91" and "Save $19.71" and think he was getting a bargain.

About that bargain. The prices returned to normal yesterday as the sale ended. Here is what the PLEX Store page looked like at 0600 EVE time today:

The good news is that the price of PLEX did not rise. But that leaves the little bit of deception that CCP pulled on unsuspecting players. Seems that instead of a player saving $5.91 by purchasing 2 PLEX during the sale, the actual discount was $1.00 USD.  The savings for purchasing 6 PLEX was only $4.98, not the $19.71 advertised during the sale.

Perhaps quoting Hanlon's Razor at the top of the post is mean. I am irritated with what happened, although I can see where CCP may have acted without malice in someone's heart. The "Save X amount" is clearly a carryover from the standard page displaying the savings of purchasing a bundle versus just purchasing one at a time.

The problem is the price quoted below the price on the sales page. The prices I circled should list the regular price, not the price of the number of PLEX times $19.95. If we assume Hanlon's Razor is correct, then the issue probably occurred when translating the prices of the 13 PLEX and 30 PLEX packages. The regular page doesn't offer those amounts, just 12 and 28 PLEX packages. My guess is someone just took the $19.95 single PLEX price and just multiplied that by the number of PLEX and called it a day.

I could put my tinfoil hat on and speculate that CCP planned on raising the price, but then backed out at the last minute. If the tinfoil is correct, then the web designer did everything right and got left holding the bag, hoping no one noticed.

Now, if I am wandering into tinfoil territory, I should give the wild theory I came up with using my special The Mittani™ decoder ring. What if the sale was a market test for a price reduction? Why would CCP reduce the price of PLEX? Well, because of new features like selling skill points that require Aurum, or PLEX to convert into Aurum. Or PLEX to convert to ISK in order to buy the skill points. CCP may figure that lowering the price of PLEX a little will bring in more real world cash. Holding a nearly two week sale may give CCP the metrics to see how much money they would bring in with a small price reduction. 

Removing the tinfoil, I do have to say I'm disappointed in CCP's performance during the sale. No matter what the motivation, I believe CCP misrepresented how much players would save during the sale. Hopefully we do not see a repeat performance anytime soon.

Closing The Books On World Of Darkness

A lot of people wrote off and forgot a game that never was, World of Darkness, when CCP announced the end of development of the vampire MMO on 14 April 2014. But much like sovereignty warfare in the Dominion era, some cleanup still needed to occur even though the action had ended. On Thursday, Paradox Interactive published the following press release:

"STOCKHOLM - Oct. 29, 2015 - Paradox Interactive, a global games developer and publisher, today announced the acquisition of White Wolf Publishing from CCP Games in an all-cash deal. Now a subsidiary of Paradox Interactive, White Wolf Publishing is a licensing business that owns and manages intellectual properties including World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Led by CEO Tobias Sjögren, former EVP of Business Development at Paradox, White Wolf Publishing will operate as an independent entity with a dedicated team.

"White Wolf Publishing has a long history of producing gaming universes that span mediums, including tabletop and collectible card games, PC games and books. Paradox Interactive acquired all of White Wolf’s brands, and its new subsidiary will pursue development opportunities across relevant categories of games under the White Wolf Publishing name.

"'Like Paradox’s games, White Wolf’s properties have dedicated, passionate communities. While there are similarities in spirit, White Wolf’s IPs have very different themes than Paradox’s titles, and deserve their own brand and team,' said Fredrik Wester, CEO and President of Paradox Interactive. 'We have great respect for White Wolf’s gaming worlds and see big opportunities for their expansion in the future under our new subsidiary.'

"'Over the last 20 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with beloved studios like DICE and Paradox on the business management side of games, and as a developer earlier in my career. I look forward to bringing my experience to bear as we pursue new ways to interact with White Wolf’s universes,' said Tobias Sjögren, CEO of White Wolf Publishing. 'The White Wolf IPs are well suited for all kinds of media and we see great potential to expand them in the future.'

"'At CCP, we have great admiration for the White Wolf brands and communities, and it was extremely important to us that the acquiring company share the same respect and understanding,' said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games. 'With Paradox, we know we are leaving the brands in good hands.'"

A couple of thoughts. First, I'm glad to see that the World of Darkness IP will not languish in someone's desk. I realize that pen and paper role playing games can stick around long after the publisher stops development, but I like the fact that a dedicated group of players will hopefully receive support in the future.

The second thought is that those looking at CCP's financial report next year won't see a huge increase in profits. CCP is upgrading Tranquility, the live shard that all players outside of the People's Republic of China play on, and I expect the sale of White Wolf to Paradox to cover the cost of the new server hardware. For years, many EVE players decried CCP's leadership for diverting funds from EVE to pay for the development of World of Darkness. Now, the sale of White Wolf is possibly defraying the costs of upgrading Tranquility.

Since the beginning of 2015 when CCP hired former LazyTown CFO Sigurd Stefánsson as its new chief financial officer, the Icelandic game company has shied away from making large, long-term financial commitments. In April, CCP bought back $20 million USD in convertible bonds, thus eliminating a potential financial crisis in July 2016 similar to the one in October 2011 that resulted in a layoff of 20% of CCP's workforce. I like the thought that CCP is not borrowing against future profits in order to upgrade EVE Online's present.

Of course, the sale of White Wolf leaves one last detail to resolve. What happens to the CCP employees still working in the Atlanta office? Were they co-located with White Wolf or did they have their own office? I would hazard to guess the former. If so, do they move to Iceland or stay in the U.S.? Or do we see another well-known employee leave CCP?

Update: Apparently CCP is keeping an office in Atlanta, so the current 15 employees will not have to move.

@EVE_Rhavas @noizygamer I work in the same Atlanta office with like 15 other CCPers.

— CCP_Manifest (@CCP_Manifest) November 2, 2015

@DareaperJE @noizygamer @CCP_Peligro Yeah man. ATL DIRTY SOUTH REPRAZANT. Other functions in Atlanta is none of your business @EVE_Rhavas :P

— CCP_Manifest (@CCP_Manifest) November 2, 2015

EVE Vegas Final Thoughts

My traveling vacations are over for the year. I spend far more traveling to EVE-related events than I do paying for three subscriptions. I still don't want to think about how much I spent on food, though. Vegas is much more expensive than Reykjavik.

I'm still not a big fan of Las Vegas. Perhapse the Minmatar in me is just too unsophisticated to appreciate the Gallente-style decadence along the Vegas Strip. The more likely explanation is that the glitz and the noise failed to totally cover up the grit and despair I sensed while walking around. I know that Chicago has some of the same issues, but like an ISK doubler in Jita, Las Vegas lies about its nature in an attempt to make the unsuspecting tourists' wallet as light as possible.

Fortunately, the event is a lot more about EVE and a lot less about Vegas. If one could ignore the constant glare and noise emanating from the casino floor, one could almost imagine the convention was hosted in a large hotel. And once the sessions began, I could ignore the city around me and concentrate on serious matters, like internet spaceships.

More importantly than the devs, what made EVE Vegas great was the players. I started off running into Sugar Kyle and Dire Necessity on the way to finding Dirk MacGirk and Dreydan broadcast the Open Comms Show live on site Thursday night. On Friday, I finally got to meet Mynxee, Johnny Splunk, and Gabby (Zoe Schereau in-game) from Signal Cartel/Eve-Scout Enclave in the registration line. I also ran into Dunk Dinkle from Brave and Crossing Zebras.

I do have to say while the meals were a bit expensive, the company was great. I had a lot more fun talking around the table than hanging out at bars. I know I'm going to leave people out, but I'll try to recount those with whom I broke bread. In addition to Sugar Kyle introducing me to vodka-laced pumpkin milkshakes at Holstein's at the Cosmopolitan, I ate with Dire Necessity, Mynxee, Johnny Splunk and his wife, Wilhelm Arcturus of The Ancient Gaming Noob and his wife, Gabby, Markus Vulpine, Erika Mizune (aka DJ Yumene from EVE Radio),  Makoto Priano (CEO of IKAME), Mark726 of EVE Travel fame, Eve News 24 writer Matterall, and Hydrostatic Podcast host Ashterothi and his $13 White Russians.

The group at Lotus of Siam

Name dropping aside, Dirk MacGirk is right. EVE Vegas isn't a hit with players because of the news about internet spaceships CCP drops on us. Nor is the event a success because of the location. The reason the event shines is the people who come together to talk about this crazy hobby of ours.

I'll probably blog about some of the news that came out of Vegas over the next few days or even weeks. Just as the world continues to turn, New Eden may ebb and flow, but the action never fully stops. Despite what I posted about the keynote, I found some rather interesting news that will take a few days to research before I can write a coherent post. I collect a lot of information and, as some of those who met me can confirm, I have a different way of looking at things and connecting the pieces of the puzzle.

But as for the event itself, I'll keep the memories stored away for the next time I begin to despair about the antics of some EVE players. Players tend to make or break MMORPGs and I'm glad I just experienced more evidence that EVE has a lot more good people flying around New Eden than the the haters will ever acknowledge.

Broadcast 4 Reps

Perhaps the most poignant moment of EVE Vegas occurred Sunday during the "This is the EVE Community" presentation. Several well known EVE players and CCP developers got together to create a video to help promote Broadcast 4 Reps. Broadcast 4 Reps is a player effort started to offer help to players who feel depressed and suicidal, if only to have someone to talk to.

The video features the mother of an EVE player, John Bellicose, who took his own life in April.



For those who what to check out Broadcast 4 Reps, players maintain a chat channel (Broadcast4Reps) as well as watch the hashtag #Broadcast4Reps.

Just Saved Some Money

I was a little uncertain about buying the Oculus Rift when the new virtual reality device hits the market early next year. So one of the reasons for coming out to EVE Vegas was to try out Valkyrie and whether I can even play the game.

I am horrible at two types of games, first person shooters and flight simulators. I knew that Valkyrie is a combat flight simulator, but I figured that since the scenario at EVE Vegas consisted of shooting NPCs that I couldn't do too badly, right? Wrong.

I played a version of Valkyrie two years ago at Fanfest, so I had some clue about the experience. The first surprise was that the version of the Oculus Rift I used yesterday felt much clunkier than what I remembered. I don't think I could put it on unassisted, which would really make me not want to buy one.

The next was the controls. An Xbox One controller? I knew I was in trouble, but the first time I played I could at least fly around. Given that the scenario was the one shown in the trailer at Fanfest, that was enough for me even if I didn't succeed in shooting anything.

Needless to say, I didn't succeed in coming close to shooting anything. I experimented with trying to lock a target for my missiles, but gave that up fairly quickly when I couldn't figure out how to do so. So from then on, I just concentrated on trying to steer my ship. I failed miserably at that as well. The controls were extremely sensitive and my view bounced around very rapidly. As for trying to control my speed, I gave that up as a lost cause because ... Xbox One controller. I had too many buttons to try to remember that the button even existed much less where the button was on the pad (which I couldn't see).

When my ship finally blew up, CCP Leeloo was present to ask me questions. She pointed out that I needed to move my head around to lock things.  I just wanted to leave, so I didn't tell her the only targeting reticle I saw was for the guns and I never saw anything for the missiles. Also, I didn't really care about the advice about moving my head around because I couldn't even get my ship pointed where I wanted to go.

Overall, a much more frustrating experience than the one I had at Fanfest 2014. But don't take this post as advice not to get an Oculus Rift. The gear is an amazing technology. What I will say is that the tech will not make you like flight simulators if you don't like them in the first place. So for me, I won't rush out and pick up a unit when they come out next year.

Thoughts From The EVE Vegas Keynote

What you are about to read will come as a shock. I am part of a small minority at the event. Perhaps even a minority of one. But I didn't walk away from CCP's EVE keynote presentation with a heightened sense of excitement of the game's future.

I can think of a few reasons. First, I am not the target audience. These changes are designed with null sec in mind. Other areas of the game, especially wormholes, are affected. Players like me? Not so much.

Next, I probably follow the game too closely. I didn't see any major surprises. CCP Larrikin provided some surprising details, but the general outlines of the capital and supercapital changes were already known. In fact, a good summary of the presentation is that everything on the roadmap is proceeding according to plan.

Because I avoid null sec like the plague, I don't understand the full impact of the changes. Fleet hangars for dreadnaughts perhaps takes away the reasons players prefer carriers if they have a capital at all. Then again, with the jump fatigue changes brought about in Phoebe, I thought the suitcase carrier was a dead concept anyway.

In the same vein, the shift of carriers away from the "space healer" mode combined with the newly announced nerf to refitting while having a weapons timer probably impacts null sec and wormhole combat greatly. I imagine the Slowcat doctrine will need to change drastically, although the new class of capital logistics ships means capital level remote repair capabilities are not going away.

Some of the changes do affect low sec. Supercapitals are losing their total immunity to electronic warfare. Tackling a titan with a Rifter? New players can definitely have an impact on large scale fleet fights now. I'll wager that people stop throwing titans and supercarriers around like they have recently. But as I don't engage in combat, the possibility I am wrong is high.

I am probably in a tiny minority that wasn't impressed by the new doomsday mechanics. The Sickle-class doomsday seems like a gimmick more than anything else. But even gimmicks can have consequences. I imagine that the doomsday will have the ability to wreck great havoc on balls of ships orbiting an anchor. Combine that with the ability of supercapitals to fling their opponents involuntarily across the battlefield and I wonder if the era of tightly formed balls of ships is over.

Some of the other news was just providing details. We knew CCP planned on releasing "Brain In A Box" soon. Soon turns has a date: next Tuesday. Yes, an author, Jeff Edwards, plans on writing a book about the Fountain war. But we knew he was working with The Mittani on a project last month.
Finally, CCP announced more details of plans to introduce crowd science into EVE. But that initiative was announced during Fanfest, so the only thing new was the connection to the Sisters of EVE.

I do have to add a feature that will seem small to people who don't play EVE: new camera views. The ability to view ships and objects from beyond lock range is huge. Hopefully the change will also allow cloaked ships to observe fights with good camera angles while streaming. And from the distant to the up-close-and-personal. First person view is coming to EVE. I imagine that is necessary because CCP believes that many players will want to try EVE after Valkyrie introduces a new generation of players to the New Eden universe. Catering to people used to playing in first person view seems, in retrospect, an obvious move.

I should add one other reason why I am not filled with excitement. The venue of the site, Las Vegas. The city, or at least the part I see, is pretty depressing. Given the lore surrounding New Eden, Las Vegas is an appropriate place to hold an EVE convention. But once that glitzy exterior is stripped away, I think the dark undertones of the city affect one's emotions in a negative way. Perhaps once I get back home I'll feel differently about what I've heard so far.

I Went There

Sometimes I have to make tough choices concerning The Nosy Gamer. What subjects do I want to cover? Where do I put in the effort? So at the last minute I decided to drop my coverage of Guild Wars 2's Heart of Thorns expansion and traveled to Las Vegas to attend EVE Vegas. Oh, I bought the expansion so I will eventually write something abut the experience. Just not in the near future.

So far I'm having fun. I watched Dirk and Dreydan broadcast The Open Comms show live and then afterward went out to catch a bite to eat with Sugar Kyle and Dire Necessity. But Las Vegas itself? Meh. I took a walk and looking at Caesar's Palace I was struck by the similarities that reminded be of some of the buildings in government section of Sofia. I guess I had that comparison sitting in the back of my head because while my room at Planet Hollywood is nice, the hotels I stayed at in Sofia were nicer.

As garish as parts of Sofia are, Las Vegas is, quite frankly, worse. But's that's okay. One doesn't go to EVE Vegas for the location. The real reason is to meet up with a bunch of other internet spaceship nerds, hang out, and have a good time.

I should add, for those looking for live coverage of EVE Vegas, TMC is trying to put something together on its Twitch channel. I don't know how well that will work, because of the short planning window. But who knows? For now, I'll just try to keep good notes. With luck, CCP will have the most important sessions up on YouTube before I even get home to write up a summary.

Are PLEX Prices Rising?

Just a quick little post about the price of PLEX. No, not the skyrocketing price of PLEX on the market. No, I'm referring to the real money price that CCP is charging. I saw that 2,906 PLEX were sold in Jita on Tuesday, which is a lot for a Tuesday. So I visited the account management page and saw CCP promoting a "Crimson Harvest PLEX Sale". When I clicked on the graphic, I saw the following:

Seen On CCP's Website, 20 October 2015

I try to keep up with the price of PLEX. The CCP website indicates that the regular price of two PLEX is $39.90? That is not what the price was previously. I think during the last two sales, the price crossed off was $35.72.  Below is what authorized PLEX resellers like Eve Radio are charging.

Seen on Eve Radio's Website, 20 October 2015

When the Crimson Harvest sale is over, CCP looks like it will sell a pair of PLEX for almost $5 more than the resellers. Unless, of course, CCP makes the resellers raise their prices.

So what's going on? Is CCP trying to drum up business for the PLEX resellers? Or is something more metallic, perhaps tinfoil-looking, going on? With the dev blog on skill point selling fresh in everyone's minds, EVE Vegas could get interesting.