EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Ship Rebalancing

CCP Games has faced a problem with the last couple of EVE Online expansions. After the goodies accompanying the launch of an expansion end, so does the attention of many players. The developers have come up with a unique solution. Once the login rewards and free game time run out, drop more free content. And so, I woke up this morning to find a mini-expansion's worth of patch notes waiting on the launcher along with a dev blog. After a quick read, I think the mashup might prove useful. So here's part two of the effort covering additional ship rebalancing in Revenant.

The dev blog briefly mentioned some of the changes made to ships in today's patch.

A few ships, like the Ferox Navy Issue and the Eos were overperforming, which has been addressed by making them more engageable. Heavy assault cruisers have regained their MWD signature radius bonus to make them a bit more viable in the current meta, and various other ships, like the Ashimmu and Maulus Navy Issue, have been improved. 

This update also introduces several changes aimed specifically at mining. Resources can now be compressed through the right-click menu instead of the compression window, exhumers and barges have improved locked targets, and excavators are now faster.  

Normally I don't use quote boxes for patch notes. But for the explanations of the ship changes I'll change the format, at least for this post.

Ferox Navy Issue

The Ferox Navy Issue is overperforming, so we’re increasing the signature radius back up to the regular T1 Ferox amount and then nerfing the agility and targeting range slightly. We’re hoping the combination of sig and agility reduction will make them a bit more vulnerable to battleships and stealth bombers in fleet encounters. The Ferox Navy Issue loses the optimal bonus the regular T1 Ferox has so we are shaving a bit of max targeting range off as well.

• Signature Radius increased from 300m to 325m
• Agility nerfed from 0.66x to 0.69x
• Max Targeting Range reduced from 67500m to 60000m

Eos

Toning down the Eos somewhat. It has 11 mid-slots and low-slots combined, unlike all other Command Ships which have 10, which is even more powerful when you consider it is a drone ship. Seeing it start to become a little unhealthy in some places so we’re reducing the power of sentry drone fits slightly.

• Drone Optimal range per level reduced from 10% to 5%

Heavy Assault Cruisers

In the Uprising expansion, we made significant changes to HACs by removing or reducing long range bonuses and completely reworking the Muninn which was the most dominant ship in the game at the time. We feel like the meta has shifted now with more Battleships and Navy Battlecruisers being viable so that we can now add back the 50% MWD signature radius role bonus to HACs which we removed in early 2021.

• 50% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty Role Bonus added back

Ashimmu

The Ashimmu has lower usage than the other pirate cruisers, so giving it the ability to field 5 medium drones, or 2 flights of light drones. And giving it some small speed improvements.

• Drone Bay and Drone Bandwidth increased from 40 Mbit/sec to 50 Mbit/sec
• Max Velocity increased from 208 to 215m/s
• Agility improved from 0.58x to 0.55x

Scythe

The Scythe has fitting issues, especially since it’s an entry level support cruiser so giving it a small amount of love there. Also boosting the mobility of the Scythe a bit to try and help it stand out from the Osprey more by improving its strengths.

• CPU increased from 285tf to 300tf
• Powergrid increased from 345MW to 375MW
• Max Velocity increased from 250m/s to 260m/s
• Agility improved from 0.6x to 0.57x

Vengeance

The Vengeance has low usage, so we’re giving it a small facelift with some extra damage (But still keeping the Hawk on top with kinetic damage missiles) and a bit more powergrid to help give it some more options.

• Rocket Damage Per Level of Amarr Frigate increased from 5% to 7.5%
• Powergrid increased from 43MW to 46MW

Cruor

The Cruor is underperforming relative to its peers. We’re giving it an extra drone to bump up its damage potential a bit, but have that DPS be destructible. We are then improving the Cruor’s mobility so it can better use the long-range web for catching kiting ships.

• Drone Bay and Bandwidth increased from 5m3 to 10m3 and 5 Mbit/sec to 10 Mbit/sec, respectively.
• Max Velocity increased from 330m/s to 340m/s
• Agility improved from 3.6x to 3.4x

Maulus Navy Issue

The Maulus Navy Issue currently has 1 less total slot than the other Navy EWAR Frigates, so we’re correcting that by giving it an extra high slot. The hope here is that this will improve its versatility and open up options like triple neut setups that its brother in spirit Tristan is capable of. Small PG boost to help fill that high slot, and then a small mobility improvement since it currently is the slowest navy frigate.

• Highslots increased from 2 to 3
• Powergrid increased from 35MW to 38MW
• Max Velocity incrased from 315m/s to 325m/s

Mining Ships

Just a personal note. It's about time the developers realized their mistake with the nerfs to the Procurer made back in 2022. Now, do we really need to have wastage?

We’re giving all mining barges and exhumers an extra few locked targets to improve quality of life when mining. Specifically, the Procurer and Skiff are getting a significant agility buff, which will bring down their align times by several seconds each, and an extra midslot. During the 2022 rebalance, the Procurer and Skiff both lost a slot each total, while the Covetor and Hulk gained one, when we rebalanced them around all having the same total number of slots. The Procurer and Skiff also had their agility nerfed a bit too much and so we are now correcting this and giving them back the slot they lost. Finally, we are improving the speed of Excavators to increase their effectiveness when mining, especially when mining further away asteroids, since the Rorqual is now a more supporting role and excavators are balanced around high wastage.

Rorqual

• 'Excavator' Mining Drone base velocity increased from 175m/s to 250m/s
• ‘Excavator’ Ice Harvesting Drone base velocity increased from 90m/s to 125m/s

All Exhumers

• Max Locked Targets improved from 6 to 8

Skiff

• Agility improved from 0.8x to 0.64x
• Midslots increased from 4 to 5

All Mining Barges

• Max Locked Targets improved from 5 to 6

Procurer

• Agility improved from 0.8x to 0.64x
• Midslots increased from 2 to 3

Navy Faction Light Fighters

Small buff to navy fighters doing longer PVE encounters like the Forsaken Sanctums and Teeming Hordes. Without obsoleting T2 Fighters which still have slightly higher DPS.

• Heavy Rocket ability charge count increased from 12 to 15.

Standard Cerebral Accelerator

Was being abused by new freshly injected characters to take advantage of the 20% damage boost in ships like Marauders and Dreadnoughts, or PVP smurf accounts rather than being used by new players. Removing the damage bonuses and increasing the attributes on it from +3 to +5, to compensate it, which should make it actually more useful for new players and remove the abuse cases.

• Removed 20% turret damage boost and 20% missile rate of fire boost.
• Increased attributes from +3 to +5.

EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Mercenary Dens

CCP Games has faced a problem with the last couple of EVE Online expansions. After the goodies accompanying the launch of an expansion end, so does the attention of many players. The developers have come up with a unique solution. Once the login rewards and free game time run out, drop more content. And so, I woke up this morning to find a mini-expansion's worth of patch notes waiting on the launcher along with a dev blog. After a quick read, I think the mashup might prove useful. So here's part of the effort covering additions to one of the new features introduced in Revenant, Mercenary Dens.

First from the dev blog is an overview of the additions to Mercenary Dens that didn't make it onto Tranquility with the launch of the Revenant expansion.

Since the launch of Revenant, capsuleers have been hard at work constructing and destroying mercenary dens all over nullsec space. Today, Mercenary Tactical Operations (MTO) have been introduced to these dens, enabling capsuleers to seize control of their systems’ destiny. Upwell has lobbied for a crackdown of the transportation of the encrypted infomorphs of workers in breach of their work contracts, but the Deathless Circle has found a way to remotely transmit infomorph applicants using infomorph decryption keys, unlocking the same kind of remote consciousness that capsuleers use when they die. The production of these keys can be further stimulated through mercenary site activity and they can be delivered to the Deathless for handsome rewards. Dive into MTO today to drive development and reduce anarchy by completing operations, boosting production of infomorph decryption keys that can be traded for valuable rewards, and eliminating potential workforce disruption.

The above sounds great. Or confusing. Definitely confusing without some details. Thankfully the patch notes supplied a lot of details.

 

Mercenary Dens

• Mercenary Dens now have 2 new attributes, Anarchy and Development. Both Anarchy and Development values will slowly increase over time, approximately 5 levels per day (24 hours). Eventually, when the level hits a certain threshold, the Anarchy or Development for that mercenary den will level up, which can have certain affects.
  
  
• While a Mercenary Den is reinforced, passive Anarchy and Development are paused.
  
  
• Added a dedicated window for viewing all your mercenary dens which can be found via the neocom under Industry, or from the mercenary den agency page.

Anarchy

• Anarchy Amount: 0-19 - Level 0 - 0% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
• Anarchy Amount: 20-39 - Level 1 - 0% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
• Anarchy Amount: 40-69 - Level 2 - 10% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
• Anarchy Amount: 70-99 - Level 3 - 20% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
• Anarchy Amount: 100 - Level 4 - 40% reduction to Skyhook Workforce

This means that if left alone, it will take 8 days for a mercenary den to start to negatively impact a Skyhook.

Development Amount

• Development Amount: 0-19 - Level 0 - Regular Informorph Production rate
• Development Amount: 20-39 - Level 1 - 15% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate
• Development Amount: 40-69 - Level 2 - 25% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate
• Development Amount: 70-99 - Level 3 - 35% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate
• Development Amount: 100 - Level 4 - 50% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate

I do have to put my two cents in at this point. I believe players were promised some PvE content along with the introduction of mercenary dens. Today's patch introduces the gameplay. Plus, the sites seem custom made for newer player to contribute to the economic well-being of a null sec alliance. At least in theory. We'll need to wait for experience to see if the developers' plans bear fruit.

Mercenary Tactical Operations (MTOs)

Approximately every 3 days, a mercenary den tactical operation (MTO) will become available. MTOs are new PVE content designed for a single player in a cruiser. These sites are behind an acceleration gate that only lets in T1 and faction cruisers, or any destroyer/frigate. Once an MTO has been warped to, a beacon will appear in space which anyone can warp to, even hostile players. MTOs are very rewarding and will drop on average around 80-100 million ISK in loot, and if they are successfully completed, they will decrease anarchy by 20 points, and increase development by 10 points. Since it takes 4 days for anarchy to increase by 20 points, this means that running a MTO once every 3-4 days (when it becomes avaliable) will be enough for Mercenary Den owners to maintain their dens to prevent any adverse affect on the Skyhook if they so wish.

To Start an MTO, you will need to be undocked in the solarsystem where the mercenary den is located, and then start it from the Opportunities window, or from the Mercenary Den window. MTO sites always spawn in the same solarsystem as where the Mercenary Den is located. A Mercenary Den can have a maximum of up to 3 MTOs at once, and MTOs last for 4 days after being offered.

If a Mercenary Den is already maxed out at level 4 Development, completing a MTO will create 500 bonus infomorphs directly into the mercenary den on completion in place of the development reward.

A Slow Start For Star Citizen's Intergalactic Aerospace Expo in 2024

On Friday Cloud Imperium Games launched the beginning of Star Citizen's Intergalactic Aerospace Expo. Star Citizen's biggest event, the IAE has two purposes. The first is to attract as many new players to the game as possible. The second is to make as much money as possible. Lasting this year from 22 November to 5 December, the first weekend of the event is now in the books. According to the statistics available at the CCU Game dashboard, the event is down compared to 2023.

One of the concerns I had was whether the announcements at this year's CitizenCon would negatively impact the IAE. In October, CIG openly declared Star Citizen will be a full loot, PvP sandbox. Perhaps most importantly in terms of ship sales, the company announced AI crews to help solo players fly multi-crew ships was not a feature Star Citizen would possess at launch. 

In other words, solo pilots could not expect to use AI crews until the four systems not yet in the game -- Pyro, Nyx, Castra, and Terra -- were fully complete and in the game. Pyro will enter the Persistent Universe with the launch of Alpha 4.0, but the other planets? Even if CIG completes one system per year, the soonest solo players can expect to hire AI crews is sometime in 2028. And given CIG's track record, the year is probably closer to 2032.

The 1st weekend's performance

On the matter of attracting new players, CIG is on a bit of a two-year losing streak. The possibility exists of the game not attracting the creation of new accounts at 2021's level of 524,161. This weekend's performance is typical of the issue. Over the first three days, the 18,894 accounts created is 33.5% behind 2023's count of 28,432 over the number recorded by last year's first weekend.

The sales numbers are not quite as bad. Over the first weekend the IAE generated almost $4.2 million in sales. Still, the amount is 14.1% behind 2023's pace of $4.9 million. Perhaps the most significant piece of information is this year is that far behind even after the limited time sales of the Idris and Javelin.

Perhaps one of the biggest reason for following the two-week sales event is the potential impact on the Star Citizen player base. The last time the IAE suffered a year-over-year decline was 2014. A decade of sustained growth, at least for an event, can lead to complacency. A lot of the content creators I watch don't seem to think sales could go down this year. Admittedly, I still don't think the streak will end this year, but I'm not as sure as I was last week. If the event doesn't pull in $24.5 million like last year, do we start hearing louder cries of "Star Citizen is dying"?

EVE Vanguard x EVE Online - Groundbreak Runs From November 26 To December 9

I intended to make a prediction that EVE Vanguard, CCP Games' under development MMOFPS game, would run an event interacting with EVE Online sometime in 2025. A prediction I can no longer make since such an event is running at the end of November and extending into December. The Pearl Abyss-owned studio made the announcement on its corporate website yesterday.

REYKJAVÍK, Iceland – November 19, 2024 - Today, CCP Games announced a public limited-time access event for EVE Vanguard, the in-development MMOFPS that directly connects to the legendary EVE Online Universe. From November 28 to December 9, players can descend onto diverse planetary battlegrounds as technologically immortal warclones, engaging in intense ground combat that directly impacts the largest player-driven war in gaming history. To obtain an access code visit the EVE Vanguard Discord server.

In YC126.11.28: Groundbreak, players will join live insurgencies that reach from ground to orbit, shaping the future of New Eden. With every deployment, you have the chance to align with a faction of your choice and dive into intense 9v9 battles, capturing artillery cannons to bombard enemy fleets from the surface. Each victory strengthens your side's grip on planetary zones in EVE Online, driving opposition forces out of contested airspace and having real-time impact on the ongoing war in the cluster.

In a dev blog yesterday, the developers gave the lore explanation for the influx of all the players/testers from Vanguard. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the link between the two games is the relatively new insurgency system.

CAPSULEER REINFORCEMENTS

The Deathless is making his presence known all over New Eden – on planets and in space. He has put out a call to the capsuleers of the cluster to join in the fight against Drifter forces, in part to aid Vanguard forces in planetside operations. The Deathless Circle has deployed special towers connected to the newly revealed Warden, which scan local networks for passkeys needed to break planetary defense systems, allowing Vanguard warclones to fight for key positions in insurgencies. These towers are under attack from Drifters, and the Deathless has asked capsuleers to help defend them. There is of course nothing stopping them from destroying the towers and stealing the passkeys for themselves, should they prefer to support suppression-aligned forces. 

In a positive move, players are not confined to insurgencies and the ties to EVE Online players. The devs will take advantage of Vanguard's persistent state and run content between major conflicts.

Between insurgency deployments you can hone your power by raiding planetary zones for rare resources and blueprint parts. Face off against brutal NPC militia and rival warclones, scavenging for materials to craft tactical chipsets and blueprints. Use them to build your own custom arsenal and gain an edge for the next objective. You have the freedom to formulate your own goals, strategies, and fragile alliances, with myriad methods of achieving what you set out to accomplish. Decide where you wish to deploy, manufacture an unbeatable armory, and destroy your rivals. 

In addition to participating in the event itself, CCP is running a rewards promotion for EVE Online players from 28 November to 1 December, or Thanksgiving weekend in the United States. The rewards are up to four SKIN design components, 3,000 EverMarks, and 50,000 Skill Points for participating all four days.

I do want to an additional point not really in the press release or the dev blog. To all the bloggers and content creators creating their end of the year predictions, EVE Vanguard is scheduled to launch on Steam Early Access in 2025. Adjust your predictions accordingly.

CCP Didn't Mean To Swing The Nerfbat On Null Sec Sites

Sometimes I bet the developers over in Reykjavik feel they can't win. On the one hand, for years players have complained about the PvE in EVE Online and that the devs need to update the existing content. On the other hand, players don't like change. The latest example showed up in the patch notes on Friday.

The changes in question seemed rather innocuous when I read through the patch notes. In fact, I lumped the changes into a category called "other null sec site changes."

Nullsec Combat Anomaly Graphics and Gameplay Overhaul

Several Combat Anomaly sites in nullsec have been renovated.

• All variations of the Forsaken Sanctums, Sanctums, Havens, Patrol and Horde sites have had full art and asset renovations
• Over 100 different nullsec anomaly sites now have an objectives panel. So you can now easily see what wave you are on and how many NPCs remain at a glance!
• Several NPC groups now warp in instead of spawning in place where appropriate.

In the patch notes, the biggest concern with the graphics upgrade is the potential of the volumetric clouds in the sites impacting the performance of multi-boxers. Turns out the biggest complaint is the warping NPCs.

Apparently the issue concerns pilots of Edencom ships. I don't play in null sec so don't really have experience with area of effect weapons. I found a thread on the EVE Online sub-Reddit explaining the complaint.

Due to the mechanics of EVE/Vorton guns, if even one single ship lands outside of your 10km bubble, kiss any benefit over AFK spinning an Ishtars goodbye, because now you have to spend JUST AS MUCH TIME killing that one single lone Battleship (usually) as you did the rest of the wave that DID land within the 10km range.

Congratulations. Your clear time just doubled. Because of one ship. Because of 100 meters of range.

This one ship landing .1 km outside of your AOE range effectively doubles the amount of time/ammo taken to clear that particular wave, which ruins the whole benefit/point of running Stormbringers versus just AFK spinning Ishtars.

Now, take the above complaint with a grain of salt, although the explanation of the mechanics seems sound. Also, if I want to put on my tin foil hat, the developers may have balanced the ratting ISK faucet around the speed of clearing sites using AFK Ishtars.

Or, as the developers have done for years, tried to introduce more active gameplay into EVE. We have the age-old conflict of those who want more engaging gameplay versus those who want to gather their ISK as quickly as possible. After all, as we all learned in World of Warcraft, "Time is money, friend."

In the developer response to the issue in Friday's patch notes, making AoE farming, while not an intended consequence of the change, more difficult wasn't unwelcome. In fact, the big concern for the developers was for players not to see the move as an effort to nerf income generation. Here is the explanation from the patch notes.

With the renovation update to Nullsec anomalies, and bug fixes for the NPC dreadnoughts released in Revenant, we did not intend to significantly impact Nullsec income with the changes to the NPCs warping in instead of spawning in place. We also have not made any intentional changes to the AI used by the NPCs which would cause them to attack drones more frequently.

To address these concerns, we are increasing several Battleship and Battlecruiser NPC bounties found primarily in Nullsec by between 30-40% to compensate for the reductions in efficiency for AoE farming (Smartbomb, Stormbringer and Thunderchild ratting) due to the NPCs warping in and potentially requiring higher level of activity for increased drone management for drone setups. We are also happy for this to be a significant boost for more active forms of ratting that were not as directly impacted, such as Marauder ratting.

If anyone wants to know the impact of player backlash against the Scarcity Era, the above is a demonstration. The developers basically stated, "yes, we nerfed your playstyle, but we didn't do it to keep you from making ISK." I'd say we may need to look at this as a filter for future actions, especially in null security space.

For completeness' sake, I'll conclude this post with the actual changes the devs made on Friday to the combat sites.

• Increased the bounties on several NPCs found primarily in Nullsec Anomalies by 30-40%.
  
  
• This results in the following total average bounty increases for these popular Nullsec anomalies:
• Hubs: 28.40%
• Rally Points: 28.50%
• Patrols: 30.20%
• Havens: 31.70%
• Forsaken Hubs: 34.50%
• Hordes: 34.70%
• Sanctums: 35.70%
• Forsaken Sanctums & Teeming Hordes: 36.00%

So for those who didn't engage in AoE farming, CCP handed them a big income boost.

Black Desert Mobile Merges Servers Down To Three

A day after Pearl Abyss' earnings call for the third quarter of 2024, the South Korean game company merged the six Black Desert Mobile servers down to three. The company did give players two weeks notice, so the news wouldn't have caught vigilant investment companies by surprise.

The three servers being merged into the others were known as Oasis servers. In Black Desert Mobile, Oasis servers were special game servers introduced by Pearl Abyss in April 2024. These servers offered opportunities for both new and returning players compared to players on the regular servers. Here are some key features of Oasis servers:

Leveling Up Quickly: Players could level up five times faster compared to regular servers.

100% Black Pearl Refund: Returning players got a full refund of their Black Pearls, which could be used to purchase in-game items.

Quality-of-Life Improvements: Updates like Shadow Gear upgrades and new crafting recipes were available.

Community Events: Various events, giveaways, and special title events were held to engage players.

Given the servers only lasted six months before their announced merge into regular servers, I assume the idea a failure.

At one point Black Desert Mobile was the main driver of revenue for the Black Desert franchise. In the third quarter of 2019 BDM brought in 57% of Pearl Abyss' overall revenue, or approximately ₩76 billion ($63.6 million). In the last quarter five years later, mobile gaming only brought in 21%, or ₩15.6 billion ($21.2 million) of the company's gaming revenue. And unlike in 2019, last quarter mobile gaming revenue was split between BDM and EVE: Echoes, although the vast majority was probably generated by BDM.

Between the long decline of Black Desert Mobile and the failure to upgrade Black Desert Online for next generation consoles, Pearly Abyss is close to falling below the ₩75 billion recorded in company revenue for Q4 2017, the first month of the operation of BDM.

My First Two Days In FFXIV's Patch 7.1 - Crossroads

I've spent a couple of days playing the latest patch of Final Fantasy XIV, Crossroads. I normally refer to the patch number, in this case 7.1. I have to say I'm feeling better about the Dawntrail expansion, particularly the MSQ. After playing for two days I think I came up with a plan for the next two months or so, up to patch 7.15.

First, the MSQ. So far I haven't changed my opinion that the Dawntrail MSQ is only better than the A Realm Reborn MSQ amongst the expansion (and yes, I consider ARR an expansion). The feel of the story reminds me of the Shadowbringers expansion point releases, meaning the quality picked up in patch 7.1. The story also continued to drop pieces of alternative universe writing about the New World. For an example from the early Dawntrail MSQ, what would happen if, instead of Europeans bringing disease to the Native Americans, the Europeans picked up a deadly disease from the natives? We get something similar with the railroad story in Crossroads.

Of course I'm going to complain about the dungeon, Yuweyawata Field Station. The final boss had similar mechanics to the first boss of Alexandria, meaning a lot of dancing around telegraphs. I somehow made it through the final boss after about an hour. I agree with the comment from Alphinaud if you approach him after the fight: "I don't know how we made it through."

I did notice that the trial for patch 7.1, The Minstrel's Ballad: Sphene's Burden, is not required. The trial, as indicated by the mention of The Minstrel, is a harder version of The Interphos and thus is not required for the story in the MSQ. After all, The Minstrel is just providing an idealized story of what actually occurred.

The next bit of new content I started are the Pelupelu society quests. I really liked the little introduction quest required to unlock the feature. The Pelupelu are for combat jobs, just like the first society quest introduced in Endwalker. The experience points granted for doing the society quests is rather good. So good I decided to do society quests for Endwalker and Shadowbringers also. For doing the 9 quests I received a few points shy of 10 million experience points. I figure that reaching maximum level in a society will take 42 days. If so, I think I can not only level Dancer to 100, but Summoner as well. Once that is done, I just need to level a melee DPS and a tank job to complete all of the role quests for Dawntrail. I currently have Warrior to level 60 and no melee jobs started.

I do need to finish up one piece of patch 7.0 content. I still have to complete the quests for 2 of the NPCs in the Wachumeqimeqi district. Once those are done, I understand I can access an overall quest to finish off the area once patch 7.15 arrives, probably sometime in January. I have the feeling a lot of crafting and gathering content will drop in patch 7.15 so I need to finish up so I'm ready when the patch drops.

Looking at the above I have a lot of daily tasks ahead of me. But I really don't mind because I like running around the world and the new quests tell a bit more about the new lands I'm exploring. 

Pearl Abyss Q3 2024 Earnings Call

On Tuesday in South Korea, Pearl Abyss held its earnings call for the third quarter of 2024. The company experienced a quarter-over-quarter revenue decline of 2.8% down to ₩79.5 billion ($58.6 million). Year-over-year the company's revenue has declined 6.3% compared to Q3 2023's revenue of ₩84.9 billion ($64.7 million). 

The drop in revenue alone doesn't tell the full story of Pearl Abyss' poor financial performance in the third quarter. In the third quarter, the company posted a operating loss of ₩9.2 billion ($6.8 million). Over the past four quarters, the company has posted losses in three, totaling ₩19.9 billion ($14.7 million). 

The operating loss translated into a net loss of ₩7.8 billion ($5.8 million). In response to a question from one of the investment analysts, a member from the Pearl Abyss C-suite explained the company had experienced a couple of one-time expenses that contributed to the losses. The first was ₩2.5 billion spent on responding to a tax audit from the South Korean government. The other was ₩500 million in increased electrical costs for air conditioning during the summer's abnormally warm summer.

While the second net loss over the last four quarters, Pearl Abyss has shown a profit of ₩9.2 billion ($7.2 million) over the period. 

In another piece of news, ₩5.0 billion, or 6.3% of Pearl Abyss' revenue did not come from game revenue associated with its two main intellectual properties. In the past Pearl Abyss has posted significant revenue from its financial division. Apparently the same happened again in the third quarter, although none of the investment analysts on the call asked about the subject.

In a look at the Black Desert IP revenue fell from the previous quarter by 10%, down to ₩54.0 billion ($39.8 million). The year-over-year decline was steeper, with the quarter's revenue down 21% from the ₩68.4 billion ($52.1 million) posted in the third quarter of 2023. The financial picture in the fourth quarter looks rosier as Tencent began Black Desert Online service in the People's Republic of China on 24 October. Additional sales are possible as the company plans special events to celebrate the 10th anniversary in December.

The picture was brighter for the games set in the EVE universe. Quarter-over-quarter sales fell 5.1% down to ₩20.5 billion ($15.1 million) in the third quarter. But year-over-year sales rose 28.1% compared to Q3 2023's mark of ₩16.0 billion ($12.2 million), meeting the revenue expectations set on the Q2 earnings call.

Revenue should rise for the EVE IP in the upcoming quarter. In addition to the bi-annual EVE Online expansion launching today, the new mobile game, EVE Galaxy Conquest, launched globally on 29 October. In addition, two games under development, EVE Vanguard and EVE Frontier were mentioned on the call. In response to token sales concerning CCP's blockchain-based MMORPG, the Pearl Abyss CEO referred all such queries to CCP.

The most questions, however, were asked about Crimson Desert. The Pearl Abyss leadership spent a lot of time deflecting questions about the game, probably to not overshadow any upcoming announcement coming up at G-STAR this weekend starting on Thursday in Busan. After a question about the demo at G-STAR, the analyst was told to go to the convention floor and play it himself. I think the question might have struck a nerve as those on the call had already been told the playable demo at G-STAR would basically be the same one presented at Gamescom except with one additional boss.

Some questions about Crimson Desert were answered on the call. For example, the 22% increase in advertising expenditures up to ₩8.9 billion ($6.6 million) was mostly due to increased costs associated with attending game shows and other events to introduce the game to the public. Also, the studio is still considering multi-player modes as well as downloadable content to keep revenue up after the game's first year on the market. When Crimson Desert was first introduced a multi-player mode was included as a feature.

EVE Online: Revenant Patch Notes - SKINR Paragon Updates

EVE Online's Revenant expansion, set to launch on 12 November 2024, is the game's fifth full expansion since the return of the content format in November 2022. The patch notes are fairly extensive and dense. I find reading lengthy patch notes rather boring, so I also like to go to other sources for information. The format of the official patch notes for Revenant is a little unusual as I don't see as many bullet points as in previous expansions. Still, I'll try to add something to the patch notes.

The tenth and final post in the Revenant patch notes series looks at the upcoming updates to the SKINR Paragon system. I'm not a big fan of SKINs, still having hundreds of unique, unapplied SKINs floating around my inventory. But with the continued focus on the feature, one would think the feature is possibly the most important in the game.

In a financial sense, player-created SKINs are the most important feature in the game. Not only does the process require PLEX, but presents the developers with additional opportunities to put items in the cash shop. Before the advent of the SKINR Paragon system, players, including those elected to the Council of Stellar Management, said they would gladly pay for corporation and alliance SKINs. The SKINR Paragon system was the result.

Since I don't know about the actual mechanics of the system, I'll list the updates coming in Revenant without further comment.

EVE Online: Revenant Patch Notes - Glorified Mutaplasmids and Mutaplasmid Residue

EVE Online's Revenant expansion, set to launch on 12 November 2024, is the game's fifth full expansion since the return of the content format in November 2022. The patch notes are fairly extensive and dense. I find reading lengthy patch notes rather boring, so I also like to go to other sources for information. The format of the official patch notes for Revenant is a little unusual as I don't see as many bullet points as in previous expansions. Still, I'll try to add something to the patch notes.

This ninth post in the Revenant patch note series is the shortest in the series. Glorified Mutaplasmids and Mutaplasmid Residue is a niche subject but still one deserving of coverage. And due to how the features introduced in the expansion tend to relate to one of a few major themes, I couldn't just create a miscellaneous blog post. So below is what the patch notes had to say about the changes.

Glorified Mutaplasmids and Mutaplasmid Residue

All abyssal modules can now be reprocessed into mutaplasmid residue - this means that modules that you mutate that don’t have the results that you were hoping for or aren’t able to sell are still useful! Mutaplasmid residue can then be used in new blueprints found in regular abyssal content and from CONCORD Rogue Analysis Beacons to create 169 new, improved, glorified abyssal mutaplasmids, which are more powerful versions of the existing mutaplasmids found in the game. Just Keep Rolling!