EVE Online's SKINR Login Event Extended One Week

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.

Dawntrail Diary: Scrip Farmer

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).  

For those wondering about my target gear, I am aiming for Teamcraft's 7.0 mid-tier crafting set.

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:

Orange Scrip Macro 1

/ac "Muscle Memory" <me><wait.3>
/ac "Waste Not II" <me><wait.3>
/ac Manipulation <me><wait.3>
/ac Veneration <me><wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <me><wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <me><wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <me><wait.3>
/ac Innovation <me><wait.3>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <me><wait.3>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <me><wait.3>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <me><wait.3>
/ac Innovation <me><wait.3>
/ac "Trained Perfection" <me><wait.3>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <me><wait.3>
/echo Macro 1 finished <se.2>

Orange Scrip Macro 2

/ac "Preparatory Touch" <me><wait.3>
/ac "Byregot's Blessing" <me><wait.3>
/ac Veneration <me><wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <me><wait.3>
/echo Craft finished <se.2>

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.

August Update To EVE Online's SKINR System

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. 

The patch notes listed the changes.

• 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.

I didn't log in the first day

The Latest On Black Desert Online In China

 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.

A Look At The Active ISK Delta In July 2024

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.

Dawntrail Diary - Jumping To Crafting

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.

• Final Fantasy XIV (aka 1.0) - Metascore: 49, User Score: 4.0
• A Realm Reborn - Metascore: 86, User Score: 7.7
• Heavensward - Metascore: 86, User Score: 8.7
• Stormblood - Metascore: 87, User Score: 8.9
• Shadowbringers - Metascore: 90, User Score: 9.1
• Endwalker - Metascore: 92, User Score: 8.8
• Dawntrail - Metascore: 79, User Score: 6.2

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.

Pearl Abyss Q2 2024 Earnings Call

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.

A Look At July 2024 Activity In EVE Online

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.

Dawntrail Diary - Patch 7.05

The launch of Final Fantasy XIV's current expansion was five weeks ago. As is my custom, I'm now behind the current content as patch 7.05 dropped last Tuesday. Of course, I don't participate in doing savage content. I have enough trouble doing the normal content and have no desire to do the harder trials and raids. But that doesn't mean I have no content to do.

My longest login queue - On Saturday I experienced my longest login queue as someone decided they didn't like Final Fantasy XIV. A DDoS attack hit the North American servers. Besides the one time everyone was kicked from the game, I did lose three or four crafts due to lag throughout the day.

No winning with difficulty - I am still at the gates of the final trail in the MSQ as I concentrated on getting to the new content in patch 7.05. But an interesting debate occurred on the official forums. Is Dawntrail too hard? A threadnaught, to use an EVE term, developed on the subject as several content creators decided to pile on and broadcast someone's complaints on the subject. 

Personally, I found a couple of the duties extremely difficult. But I'm probably not the audience for difficult content. I just want to run through the MSQ and then do my crafting and gathering. Still, I needed to do the combat content in order to do the crafting and gathering. After talking to my real life neighbor who's also heavily into crafting, I don't need to finish the final trial to do what I want currently. I will, however, need to finish the MSQ before patch 7.1 drops in a couple of months.

Since I have time, I plan on leveling three Trust characters, Thancred (tank), Estinian (melee DPS) and Y'shtola (magical ranged DPS) from level 90 to level 100 and rerun the dungeons. I figure the levelling process will help me get more comfortable with the keyboard as I spent months not doing real dungeons at the end of Endwalker. My goal isn't to be the best player in the final trial. I just want to be in the middle of the pack and not embarrass myself.

I did notice something as I left a couple of comments in YouTube comment sections. A lot of people consider using Duty Support to progress through a duty or trail the hard way to do the content. Instead they suggest doing the content with others so when you die you don't necessarily need to start the boss fight over. In other words, letting other players carry you as you lie on the floor.

I can remember back, oh two months ago, when the internet mob said doing so was a disgrace and Square Enix needed to do something about the practice. Now I'm told the practice is "getting gud." Sometimes you just can't win.

The journey for new crafting books - Patch 7.05 introduced new crafting recipes along with the savage content. The raiders need crafters to make the weapons and gear in the Master XI crafting books, which require 1200 purple scrips, or 9600 scrips total. I currently have 4000 scrips from the Wachumeqimeqi Deliveries and get get another 4000 over the next two days from interacting with Ameliance and Anden since the week begins on Tuesdays. After that, I just need to do one more Wachumeqimeqi quest and I should have all my books.

Crafting progress - Getting the books won't do a lot of good if I don't get my crafting up to level 100. On that front I'm doing pretty good. I managed to level 2 more classes, Armorer and Blacksmith, to the level cap. I've been doing primarily leves to level my crafting and most of the items require parts made by several classes. For example, I don't need to do anymore leves for Leatherworking because I'm only 3 crafts away from reaching level 100. With the free company crafting XP buff operating tonight, I might finish off two of the five remaining classes tonight.

Overall I gained 41 crafting levels last week and only need 12 more to go to reach the levelling goal for Dawntrail. Currently I'm at:

• Armorer: 100
• Blacksmith: 100
• Culinarian: 100
• Leatherworker: 99
• Weaver: 98
• Alchemist: 97
• Carpenter: 97
• Goldsmith: 97

I should add something about the leve allowance. The developers put a limit of 100 leves a player can perform, with the player receiving 6 leves per day. During the last week I went from 92 leves down to 32 when I logged out last night. So the limit may discourage players who can sit and grind leves for hours at a time. For me, the limit really didn't affect me much. What did affect me is I used up almost all of my rested XP. Hopefully I have enough to finish over the next few days.

FATE Gathering - Starting back in Shadowbringers performing FATEs became something more than just a way to level a character. I wound up participating in FATEs to get crafting ingredients for levelling up. I had a friend who had so many gems from running FATEs that she gave me a stack of skins I needed to level my leatherworking. Remember, players can make some nice gil right now by selling the items from the gemstone vendor on the market. In addition to levelling, crafters will need some of those items to craft gear for all those players who want to run savage content.

Lighter travel restrictions - With Patch 7.05 came a changing of travel restrictions. 

As of today [30 July], the previously announced travel restrictions will be lifted from the World Visit System and Data Center Travel; however, Patch 7.05 will introduce new regulations based on World classifications to promote the even distribution of players across our Worlds.

Standard Worlds with no Congested Worlds within the same Logical Data Center

• World Visit Login Capacity: Standard
• Data Center Travel Login Capacity: Standard

Standard Worlds with one or more Congested Worlds within the same Logical Data Center

• World Visit Login Capacity: Standard
• Data Center Travel Login Capacity: Greatly Reduced

New and Preferred Worlds

• World Visit Login Capacity: Standard
• Data Center Travel Login Capacity: Increased

Congested Worlds

• World Visit Login Capacity: Reduced
• Data Center Travel Login Capacity: Greatly Reduced

My world is still rather busy. When I logged off last night I was in instance 2 of Tuliyollal. I have the feeling we still have another month or so of instances in order to facilitate gameplay.

Cloud Imperium Games Posts $3.7 Million In Sales In July 2024

After recording a very good second quarter for 2024, Cloud Imperium Games' revenue slid down to $3.7 million for the month of July according to the CCU Game dashboard. July's revenue represents a 14.8% year-over-year decline from July 2023's total of $4.4 million. For the year, the company's revenue is basically flat, with this year's total of $58.1 million only $50,000 more than revenue over the first seven months of 2023.

For those who keep track of new accounts (aka "new citizens"), July's 37,257 was 40.6% less than the total of 62,757 in July 2023. For the year, new account creation is down 28.1% for the first seven months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

Overall, the recorded sales tracked on the CCU Game dashboard is $715.5 million since the launch of the Kickstarter in October 2012. But Cloud Imperium has additional funding sources not tracked by the dashboard. Overall, the company has recorded $814.1 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2022 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $715.5 million (through 31 July 2024)
• Subscriptions: $33.0 million (through 31 December 2022)
• All other sources: $65.6 million (through 31 December 2022)

In addition, the company has received a total of $63.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2022 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $872.6 million.

The flat year-over-year revenue growth in 2024 is not the only concern for Cloud Imperium emerging in July. On 2 July, the company filed paperwork with UK Companies House formalizing the resignation of Ortwin Freyermuth from the board of directors. Freyermuth, a long time business associate and co-founder of Cloud Imperium with CEO Chris Roberts, still retains the Vice Chairman position.

What makes the resignation a concern is the 75-year-old Freyermuth is the third largest shareholder in CIG, owning 8% of issued shares. Historically, all the major shareholders have had a representative on the board of directors of CIG. Does this indicate Freyermuth plans to divest himself of his financial position in CIG and head into retirement? While this would not affect Roberts' control of the company (he owns over 70% of shares), repurchasing Freyermuth's shares before the release of Squadron 42 could put CIG in a financial bind. Especially since outside of Squadron 42, revenue is not increasing at the 27% rate experienced over the past 5 years.