Another month, another expansion. In this article looking back a year compares the launch of the Equinox expansion on 11 June to the launch of Viridian (13 June 2023). I like looking back a year since the same seasonal effects will impact player activity in the same way. When an expansion occurs almost on the same date in both months, who can resist comparing the months?
Now, I did have some concerns when I looked at Jester's average concurrent user graph I had some concerns. I'm pretty sure the steep decline wasn't entirely attributable to the testing of the new map in EVE: Vanguard. From looking at the graph with the naked eye, the 7-day average dropped back down to the 23,000 ACU baseline following an initial peak of interest.
Jester's graph does show EVE maintaining a large increase in players year over year and the number of explosions recorded on Dotlan shows everyone isn't just ship spinning. Year-over-year, the number of player ships killed in high-sec are up 53.6% and not just because of increased ganking.
Yes, I realize player ship losses increased by 285% in Uedama from June 2023 to June 2024, but total losses in the high sec choke point system still only make up 5% of player ships lost in high sec. And given CONCORD probably accounted for 60-70% of the increased kills? I think increased use of visits to career agents has a bigger impact. For example, players lost more ships in the Minmatar career agent system of Malukker than the top ten most violent null sec systems in June. In other words, the NPCs are racking up a lot of kills on new characters.
I did want to look at low sec to see if the new expansion had an impact of PvP activity. At least during the launch month the security band seems to just chug along. June's 228,242 recorded ship losses were even up by 8,000 compared to the previous month. Compared to June 2023, player ship losses increased 11% and NPC kills increased by 22%. Once again, something to watch, but the activity seems on par.
The key statistic in null sec is the number of NPCs players kill in null sec in order to help pay for their ships and modules. The number of NPCs dying rose 6.3% from May to June up to 218.2 million. The month did see a milestone reached, as players killed more NPCs than in October 2020. That month was the last full month before the developers instituted the Dynamic Bounty System. Combined with other changes, the DBS kicked off the beginning of Scarcity Era. June's total of NPC deaths exceeded that of Viridian's launch month by 49%.
