Friday Bullet Points About Blizzard, SWTOR, and Apple as Summer Approaches

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It is June, most of the kids are out of school by now, or very close, and summer is on its way… though you might not know it from the weather here this week. It rained on Tuesday… hard… like real rain. That is unusual in California even in a wet year.

But at least it isn’t wildfires. I feel for our brothers and sisters in the northeast, where the sky is an apocalyptic orange and the air is barely breathable. We know what it is like and hope they get through it. The pictures I see on the news are reminiscent of the peak sky on fire times here.

The sky at our house back in the summer of 2020

Anyway, it is Friday and I have some tidbits to run through.

Diablo IV a Best Seller We’re Told

It is completely in the usual expectations for Blizzard to have them find some way to make whatever they just shipped a best seller in some way. And Diablo IV is no exception.

Diablo IV

There was a press release out declaring that the title’s launch immediately set a new record for sales at Blizzard. It is their fastest selling game of all time.

The details though, they are a little vague on that. How many units or how many dollars or how many players… they didn’t stray into such mundane details. Instead they drifted off into the number of hours played since the launch of early access. 93 million hours is the total, which if laid out end to end or some such, adds up to more than the sum of all human history.

Good for them, and good for those enjoying the game. But when you don’t have a number… it always feels a little weak. Also, this once again makes me reflect on how Dragonflight is the only WoW expansion ever to not get a similar sort of press release.

Activision – Diablo IV Launches, Immediately Sets New Record
Game Developer – Diablo IV is Apparently Blizzard’s Fastest Selling Game Ever

Microsoft Might Pull Activision from the UK over CMA Merger Block

Sure, Blizz has the Diablo IV launch to celebrate, but when it comes to the Microsoft acquisition all is not well. I mean sure, China, Korea, and the EU have rolled over and approved the merger. But the UK’s CMA is still a thorn in the side of the whole deal, as they refuse to sanction the who thing… and action that seemed to get the company to release their financials a day early, just so they could complain about it ASAP.

Activision is out there banging its shoe on the table, calling the CMA’s logic irrational, because this stands in the way of Bobby and the board’s big payday.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is considering just taking Activision Blizzard out of the UK market if the country isn’t going to submit. Back when they were initially fretting about this I jokingly asked what percentage of their business in the UK, a swipe at the company trying to minimize Blizzard’s lost business in China. Little did I expect that somebody at Microsoft would do the calculation and decide it might be worth it.

SWTOR may move to Broadsword

IGN broke a story earlier this week that Star Wars: The Old Republic might get moved from BioWare to Broadsword, the latter being the business entity that runs Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot for EA… and is probably owned by EA, so the post I saw about EA “selling” SWTOR to Broadsword needs a re-think. It is being transferred from BioWare to Broadsword, which are all part of the EA family of economic entities. But I’ll explore that who thing in another post.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This feels like a bit of a mixed blessing.

The downside is that Broadsword is very much the maintenance crew for some old titles, with a small staff… under 30 total if their web site is up to date with team members… so that seems to be drawing down the curtain on any big new content releases. Expansions are over.

On the bright side, the game will carry on, which in the world of EA is no minor blessing. And Broadsword, despite its small size, feels like it has been a decent steward of its first two titles, so one should expect them to carry on that way with SWTOR.

My only concern would be that SWTOR isn’t a wholly owned IP the way UO and DAOC are. Disney, the owner of all things Star Wars, has some say, and Disney will want to keep getting paid. But unless somebody else is looking to make a big budget Star Wars MMORPG, it seems like the title should be safe enough. Some money being better than no money.

Posts about the title:

IGN – Star Wars: The Old Republic Going Third-Party as BioWare Focuses on Mass Effect and Dragon Age
Massively OP – Star Wars: The Old Republic development is moving from BioWare to Broadsword
Going Commando – SWTOR to Move from Bioware to Broadsword?!
Going Commando – Why the Broadsword Move Could Be Good for SWTOR and Bad for Bioware
Inventory Full – The Broadsword Retirement Home For Old MMORPGs Is Pleased To Welcome A New Resident: SW:tOR

So far as I have read, while the news seems solid, it has yet to be officially confirmed. We shall see.

But it does feel like we may have entered the denouement of the somewhat controversial title. Starting off as one of the worst kept MMO secrets, EA at one point publicly projected subscription numbers in the range of WoW at its peak, something it never came close to. It’s budget seemed outrageous and the whole four pillars thing (later plagiarized by Alganon and more than one upped by Destiny and its SEVEN pillars) was not the winning card BioWare assumed it would be. It’s post-launch subscription drop betrayed the hubris of the project and sent it to a free to play model, thus cementing the end of the subscription MMO era and a serious pause on any big budget MMORPGs. (And the start of the Kickstarter era or broken promises and disappointing launches.)

It has been a ride, but it is still around while other titles have come and gone.

Apple has a Brand New Headset

The Apple World Wide Developer Conference, WWDC, was running this past week. It has been a good 25 years since I attended one, that being the point when Apple was at low ebb before the return of Steve Jobs, when having Macintosh experience on your resume barely made you competitive with those applying straight from a McDonald’s gig. It was a tough time, and the company has changed a lot since then. We have had iMacs, iPods, iPhones, iPads, and even AppleTV since then. We have come to expect Apple to take stuff we already have and make it smooth and expensive and everywhere.

But this past week the buzz has been all about Apple’s Vision Pro AR headset and its $3,500 price tag. The level of mockery exceeded that seen when Apple announced the iPad and the web erupted with feminine hygiene memes… and we all know how that ended up, with an iPad in every home.

I guess there is no bad publicity, and the headset was certainly everywhere.

The Latest meme fodder

There was also a lot of invoking the name of Steve Jobs, declaring he would hate this, would fire anybody associated with it, would burn down the building and salt the earth where the design team worked, and so on. There are a few reasonable takes on that front, but most of them are garbage from people who probably think he invented the black mock turtle neck sweater. In the Cult of Mac the figure of St. Steve looms large, but he had his own series of bad ideas that are mostly forgotten because his successes were so wild. So it is hubris to blandly declare what he would or wouldn’t like. I certainly don’t know what he would have thought.

And, honestly, I am not sure what to think about the whole thing. I wasn’t going to pay whatever Meta wanted for an Oculus set at its peak, and the Apple model is something like 3x that price, so it isn’t on my Christmas list.

On the other hand, Apple has a reputation of making expensive things desirable. It has been a while since there was a line around the block for a new iPhone, but it wasn’t that long ago. And it was reported that Apple did not use the word “metaverse” even once in their presentation.

Meanwhile, the mockery seems to have died down almost as quickly as it arrived.

The whole thing seems to be a computer on your head and there is a solution to the “can’t see the world” problem in the mix, but I am still not sure what the experience is that Apple is trying to sell people on.

However, I am sure Apple’s marketing will get right on that when the time is ripe.

Apple – Vision Pro site
Ars Technica – Apple reveals Vision Pro, available for $3,499
Ars Technica – Hands-on with Apple Vision Pro: This is not a VR headset

A Look into May 2023 Destruction in EVE Online

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The EVE Online Monthly Economic Report for May 2023 landed earlier this week, and for once I was ready for it. For those interested in the economy side of things, the following links are a good start. You can see how much impact the anniversary events had on the economy.

EVE Online nerds harder

I, on the other hand, am going to stick to the killdump.csv file… though I will quickly point out that a lot of ISK was dumped into the game in May due to the anniversary events, largely through commodity redemption, though the Active ISK Delta also shows that a lot of people logged in dormant accounts to collect prizes.

May 2023 ISK balance

But did all that ISK generation mean that more people were playing and, more importantly, leading to more things being blown up?

The short answer is: no.

There was a drop in explosions, with May ringing in 39 trillion ISK in destruction with 403,900 hulls destroyed, a small dip from the 409,905 seen in April. That made the kills per day metric I am tracking drop down to 13,028.03 kills per day in May. Here is the year so far:

January – 13,729.96 kills per day
February – 14,307.75 kills per day
March – 14,878.67 kills per day
April – 13,663.50 kills per day
May – 13,028.03 kills per day

That makes May the low month of the year so far, though we have yet to enter the summer doldrums, so give it time. It remains to be seen if this month’s Viridian expansion can stem that seeming annual tide. Still, the chart I have been keeping shows 2023 is keeping ahead of 2022’s pace.

Avg losses per day, 2020 through May 2023

(For past years, I did monthly stats from 2020 forward here.)

As for what was blown up, let’s get into numbers, starting with the Top 20 hull types destroyed.

Type	Count
Capsule	114,308
Frigate	66,384
Cruiser	33,243
Destroyer	24,672
Shuttle	22,229
Corvette	16,909
Combat Battlecruiser	14,536
Heavy Assault Cruiser	10,284
Mobile Tractor Unit	10,226
Hauler	8,529
Interdictor	8,288
Battleship	7,259
Interceptor	6,785
Assault Frigate	5,271
Strategic Cruiser	5,112
Stealth Bomber	4,387
Mobile Warp Disruptor	4,187
Mining Barge	4,097
Covert Ops	4,079
Tactical Destroyer	3,951

This is becoming a list of the usual suspects, with just the numbers changing every month, though I will note that capsules were not part of the 6K reduction in kills in May, as there were almost 2K more capsule kills than in April.

When broken out by specific hull types, the top 20 most destroyed are:

Hull	Count
Capsule	113,293
Venture	11,312
Mobile Tractor Unit	9,781
Heron	9,750
Ibis	7,341
Caldari Shuttle	6,133
Amarr Shuttle	6,108
Ishtar	5,923
Gallente Shuttle	5,751
Vexor	5,021
Caracal	4,867
Velator	4,238
Sabre	4,174
Catalyst	3,577
Atron	3,136
Gnosis	3,133
Thrasher	3,115
Tristan	3,079
Minmatar Shuttle	3,066
Kikimora	2,930

As always, capsules top the list, though somebody asked me in an IM last month why the number of capsules are lower on this chart. The reason is that there are two different capsule types. Those of us who bought the 10th Anniversary and redeemed the Mystery Code (and don’t get me started on the promise versus delivery on that, though we did get something from it five years back) have Capsule – Genolution ‘Auroral’ 197-variant, instead of the standard issue capsule, which is shiny and gold. 1,015 of those were destroyed in May.

Just a gold capsule in the bubbles

On the flip side of the top numbers, hulls that were blown up exactly once… minus the fighter groups that were blown up just once… were:

Hull	Count
AIR Civilian Astero	1
Angel Control Tower Medium	1
Angel Small Artillery Battery	1
Bestla	1
Blood Energy Neutralizing Battery	1
Blood Small Pulse Laser Battery	1
Caiman	1
Component Assembly Array	1
Compression Array	1
Dark Blood Control Tower	1
Dark Blood Control Tower Small	1
Domination Control Tower	1
Drone Assembly Array	1
Drug Lab	1
Equipment Assembly Array	1
Erebus	1
Guristas Spatial Destabilization Battery	1
Large AutoCannon Battery	1
Miasmos Amastris Edition	1
Minmatar Listening Outpost	1
Reprocessing Array	1
Research Laboratory	1
Serpentis Control Tower	1
Serpentis Warp Scrambling Battery	1
Shadow Large Railgun Battery	1
Shadow Medium Railgun Battery	1
Shadow Sensor Dampening Battery	1
Tiamat	1
True Sansha Control Tower Medium	1
True Sansha Control Tower Small	1
True Sansha Large Beam Laser Battery	1

Sure, the Erebus is a nice kill, and the Caiman is a faction dreadnought, so pricey, but the big kills are the Bestla and the Tiamat, which are both alliance tournament ships. (The kills are linked in the chart.) That appears, according to zKillboard, to be the first Bestela destroyed in game. I am surprised there wasn’t a thread on r/eve about it.

Otherwise, we are seeing the long, ongoing attrition of faction POS modules.

I was puzzled for a bit by the AIR Civilian Astero, since zKillboard shows tons of those being blown up by NPCs in some mysterious part of space, but not being counted towards the totals, which sounds like CCP stuff going on. I don’t know what the ship is and I don’t know where that space is.

But one of those ships got loose and was blown up in low sec in the Old Man’s Star system. So that is a bit of a mystery.

Then I want to account for how much value these losses represent. So the top 20 hulls by total value of all losses are:

Hull	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
Capsule	113,293	2,998.93 billion	26.47 million
Tengu	2,036	1,652.31 billion	811.55 million
Vargur	770	1,649.22 billion	2,141.85 million
Paladin	838	1,545.16 billion	1843.87 million
Ishtar	5,923	1,338.01 billion	225.90 million
Loki	1,701	1,290.18 billion	758.48 million
Golem	442	914.14 billion	2,068.20 million
Revelation	163	847.92 billion	5201.97 million
Gila	1,697	758.29 billion	446.84 million
Praxis	2,595	695.37 billion	267.96 million
Kronos	275	525.77 billion	1911.90 million
Proteus	697	494.30 billion	709.18 million
Astero	2,643	479.22 billion	181.32 million
Legion	678	476.14 billion	702.28 million
Tempest Fleet Issue	898	450.72 billion	501.92 million
Athanor	213	448.91 billion	2107.57 million
Orca	274	445.97 billion	1627.63 million
Naglfar	106	409.40 billion	3,862.30 million
Nestor	172	398.33 billion	2,315.87 million
Fortizar	24	320.28 billion	1,3345.03 million

This is at least a chart that changes a bit every month, though capsules are still hanging out at the top based on both sheer numbers and, given the average ISK value per loss, the number of implants we shove in our skulls. An empty pod is just a 10K ISK loss, so there were a lot of implants in play.

Otherwise, that list is dominated by expensive hulls, like marauders, and things that were lost in large quantities, like capsules and Ishtars.

But when we pivot and look at the top 20 by ISK value per loss, we get into individually expensive ships.

Hull	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
Erebus	1	97.97 billion	97.97 billion
Avatar	2	154.78 billion	77.39 billion
Ragnarok	2	152.67 billion	76.33 billion
Hel	7	190.90 billion	27.27 billion
Nyx	9	232.43 billion	25.83 billion
Aeon	2	38.41 billion	19.21 billion
Fortizar	24	320.28 billion	13.35 billion
Ark	14	164.09 billion	11.72 billion
Tatara	9	104.55 billion	11.62 billion
Rhea	12	121.65 billion	10.14 billion
Anshar	5	50.18 billion	10.04 billion
Nomad	3	29.88 billion	9.96 billion
Tiamat	1	8.83 billion	8.83 billion
Azbel	19	141.28 billion	7.44 billion
Rorqual	42	232.50 billion	5.54 billion
Moros	30	165.30 billion	5.51 billion
Revelation	163	847.92 billion	5.20 billion
Marshal	16	72.40 billion	4.52 billion
Bowhead	28	120.54 billion	4.30 billion
Lif	4	16.06 billion	4.02 billion

It is probably no mystery why titans and super carriers are at the top of that list. The top 20 is almost all capital ships and structures.

The exception is the Marshall, the CONCORD black ops battleship, which are very pricey to lose, and that Tiamat I linked to in the “killed just once” chart above. That Tiamat is very under valued I suspect. And the Bestla, the other Alliance tournament ship I listed, is also likely very under valued, as CCP only put a 2.45 billion ISK value on the loss.

On to the region losses, I am going to consolidate the two charts into one in the interest of linear space in the post.

Region	Sum of ISK lost	Region	Count
Metropolis	2.02 trillion	The Forge	23,615
The Forge	1.95 trillion	The Citadel	22,459
Sinq Laison	1.43 trillion	Essence	18,024
The Citadel	1.36 trillion	Pochven	17,959
Delve	1.29 trillion	Placid	15,073
Pochven	1.21 trillion	Genesis	14,715
Pure Blind	1.14 trillion	Pure Blind	14,195
Essence	1.10 trillion	Sinq Laison	13,419
Devoid	1.06 trillion	Delve	12,866
Vale of the Silent	1.04 trillion	Lonetrek	12,129

For ISK lost, Metropolis leads the way, while for total loss count it is The Forge. That Metropolis doesn’t even make the top ten (it is in 15th position with 7,925 kills) means that something expensive happened there.

Likewise, for solar systems, I am also going to combine the two charts into one. I am also including the region with the system, since I certainly don’t remember where most systems are.

System	Region	Sum of ISK Lost	System	Region	Count
Turnur	Metropolis	972.24 billion	Ahbazon	Genesis	12,687
Jita	The Forge	847.08 billion	Jita	The Forge	10,918
Ahbazon	Genesis	679.33 billion	Tama	The Citadel	10,420
Gheth	Devoid	502.76 billion	Kourmonen	The Bleak Lands	6,234
Y-1918	Branch	498.43 billion	Fliet	Essence	5,213
Old Man Star	Essence	459.98 billion	Rancer	Sinq Laison	4,594
WLF-D3	Venal	356.47 billion	Heydieles	Essence	4,288
Tama	The Citadel	355.60 billion	Uitra	The Forge	3,324
Balle	Sinq Laison	286.34 billion	C4C-Z4	Fade	3,094
X47L-Q	Pure Blind	229.56 billion	MJ-5F9	Perrigen Falls	3,079

That actually gives some insight when combined with the regional chart. For example, we know where almost half of the destruction in Metropolis took place. Turnur is a Faction Warfare system and it looks like Amarr and Minmatar forces went at it hard mid-May. That battle even shows up on the battles HTML that CCP provides.

The big battle in Turnur

I had to fiddle with hue and saturation to get that color because by default it is on an orange background that makes it practically unreadable. But that gives you the date, so you can make a battle report if you want to see what went on that day. Over on Reddit there is an image of the dread brawl that broke out.

What I would like to be able to do is break out details for destruction for the different security bands as a data chart, the way CCP includes something like that in the MER.

Destruction by Security Band over Time

I like that chart, but I would like to be able to record the monthly details. The killdump.csv doesn’t include the sec value for the systems, just the system names and IDs, and I am in no mood to build a mapping table just to extract that information.

Over at TNG Noisy has been looking at destruction by security band by pulling data from DOTLAN EVE Maps. I could do that too I suppose, but that is a different data set and I would like to keep on an apples to apples comparison.

Ideally CCP would just add a sec status column to the killdump.csv file, but that is probably low on their list with an expansion coming out soon. Maybe some day.

Finally, in searching for a bonus chart, I figured I could look at the top ten corporations for kills and losses.

Sorting by total ISK lost by corp, these are the top ten.

Corp	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
State War Academy	9,067	382.98 billion	42.24 million
Pandemic Horde Inc.	3,914	292.46 billion	74.72 million
Scan Stakan	4,698	269.99 billion	57.47 million
Stardust-Guardian	1,241	262.66 billion	211.65 million
ChuangShi	2,384	260.01 billion	109.07 million
KarmaFleet	2,669	249.40 billion	93.44 million
Singularity Expedition Services	518	236.47 billion	456.51 million
School of Applied Knowledge	6,457	227.47 billion	35.23 million
Federal Navy Academy	4,459	216.20 billion	48.49 million
Science and Trade Institute	6,175	213.81 billion	34.63 million

At the top of the list is the State War Academy, the default Caldari NPC corporation, which currently has 2,667,567 members. The interesting thing I suppose is that the top corps are the default corps for each of the NPC empires. In fact, the School of Applied Knowledge, the next NPC corp, is ALSO a Caldari corp.

You have to get to the Federal Navy Academy to get to the first Gallente NPC corp… and after that is the Science and Trade Institute, another Caldari NPC corp.

You do see the biggest Pandemic Horde and Goonswarm corps on the list. Lots of players in those. Stardust-Guardian and ChuangShi are in Fraternity, to round that out.

Scan Stakan is a Pochven corp, and an active one at that.

Now, if you flip that chart and show the top ten corps when it comes to ISK per loss, you get a completely different set.

Corp	Count	Sum of ISK Lost	ISK per Loss
MSc Corporation	1	21.04 billion	21.04 billion
Golden Goose Industies	1	15.80 billion	15.80 billion
Dracarys Industry	1	15.36 billion	15.36 billion
840 MLG QUADTURBO 6000 EMPIRE ALLIANCE TRIRELOADED	2	27.29 billion	13.64 billion
Nevyn’s Corporation	1	12.92 billion	12.92 billion
White Stallion Mining and salvaging	1	12.45 billion	12.45 billion
Blue Horizons Holding	1	11.52 billion	11.52 billion
The one who raised the fire	1	11.28 billion	11.28 billion
Bilibili is a good place	1	11.21 billion	11.21 billion
Puppet-Masters	1	10.05 billion	10.05 billion

A lot of single losses on that list.

MSc Corporation is just one person who lost a Tatara in Genesis
Golden Goose Industies, a 3 pilot corp, lost a Bowhead in Devoid
Dracarys Industry lost an Obelisk in Khanid
The now closed 840 MLG QUADTURBO 6000 EMPIRE ALLIANCE TRIRELOADED lost a Hel in Etherium Reach and a pod elsewhere
Nevyn’s Corporation, which has 4 pilots, also lost a Bowhead in Devoid
The 10 pilot White Stallion Mining and salvaging lost a Tatara in Domain
Blue Horizons Holding, a one person corp, lost a Fortizar in Domain
The one who raised the fire lost an Ark in Molden Heath
Bilibili is a good place, a 15 pilot corp, lost a Charon in Metropolis
Puppet-Masters, a 2 pilot corp, lost a Rhea in Sinq Laison

Several of those are just very small corps either trying to avoid war decs as alts (two of those are affiliated with larger alliances) or who tried to put up a solo structure only to find that things don’t end well for structures held by one person.

And so it goes. If you want to know how your corp did in May 2023 I can probably pull those stats pretty easily.

This month we will have the Viridian expansion. How that will impact destruction remains to be seen.

Going Heroic in The Nexus

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When we finished the final current dungeon in Wrath Classic and got the “been there, done that” Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement, I wasn’t sure where we would go from there.

Northrend Dungeonmaster List

Ula had suggested we might do heroics, and I was all in for it if people wanted to, but I wasn’t sure how committed we were as a group. We did not do heroics back in the day.

Then the month of May was busy for a couple of us, so it didn’t really come up as an option, until this past weekend when we were all on and working on Argent Tournament stuff… I thought that might just be a “me” thing to do, but it is a good source of gold and opens up some gear upgrades… when Fergorin suggested we go try a heroic instance.

We had the time, and we were all together, and we were all level 80, why not?

When the question of which one landed, I suggested The Nexus. It is probably the one instance we have done the most, so it would be familiar. We remembered the bosses and their quirks. It was also one of the instances we managed to do with a group of four, save for the final boss, so it seemed like it might be achievable.

So it was off to Coldarra. Fergorin and Bjorid flew on out, then summoned the rest of us. There was a question of how to start a heroic, though the dungeon difficulty selection in the group setting was found quickly enough. Then in we went.

When the swirl has a skull, it is heroic

Once we got ourselves buffed up and ready, our first target was one of the patrolling dragonkin, which seemed a bit tough until I remembered that they are essentially double size elites. And we did finish them off, it just took a bit longer, and needed a bit more healing, than I expected.

But once we got to the groups of normal dungeon trash, we did okay. They were level 80, but so were we.

We hit the first boss, Commander Kolurg, which was a new one on us. Kolurg is only in the heroic version. He is there with two clerics, so we decided to kill the clerics first to eliminate healing, then finish of Kolurg.

And our plan would have worked too, except that we forgot that the clerics might fear us, which they did, and which caused us to run off and pick up some more adds. Then things went south. We hurried up to kill at least one of his clerics, but we needn’t have bothered. Kolurg’s whole encounter respawns if you wipe. So we had to clean up and try again.

The paladin’s ressing

After that we decided to pull Kolurg and his group as far back as we could to avoid additional unfortunate encounters. That, and our original plan to kill the clerics first, worked out.

Kolurg and clerics down

We then cleared our way around to our old friend Grand Magus Telestra, who is probably the dungeon boss we have defeated the most times so far in our WoW Classic experience. This is always a busy encounter, and a lot can go wrong, especially as she cycles through her routine a second time in heroic.

Grand Magus Telestra awaits us

We actually found out about the whole “do everything twice” aspect on the fly, but we managed to adapt and follow our plan… when she splits into three, slay the arcane version first… and managed to pull through to the end without feeling like it was a struggle. We won.

Telestra down on the first try

You can also see the shine of my having raised my standing with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Ula and I both remembered to go buy tabards from factions that we wanted to raise. I went with the Ebon Blade while she chose the Wyrmrest Accord.

Tabards on display

Our foresight was acknowledged by the rest of the group, who all put tabards on their shopping lists for next time.

We worked our way around to Anomalus, who like Telestra, was the same fight with just more of the same actions. We knew the routine, followed it as we had in the past, and were rewarded with another boss down.

The only hitch was that, in jumping off of platforms to bypass groups of mobs, Ula managed to land in a little pocket of floor that was to low to climb out of.

Ula trapped in a pothole

Fortunately, Beanpole’s ritual of summoning was available and we were able to port her up out of the hole so we could continue on.

Next was Ormorok the Tree-Shaper, who was also a something of a “the same, but more of it” encounter in heroic. However, things got a little out of hand on the first attempt… I misjudged his size and walked up too close to him before we were ready… and we were down again.

Down at Omorok

We had to release and run back through the instance, avoiding the mobs we had bypassed… and only getting tripped up on that once… to get another shot at Ormorok. The second run, when we were prepared, was a success.

Which left us with Keristrasza, the final boss.

Keristrasza in her full glory after a past wipe

This was another fight with some mechanics we knew, the key one being the need to jump every so often to avoid the frost DOT build up. We knew our positioning, we had ourselves buffed up, so we had at her.

And wiped. At about the 25% health mark she enrages and puts out a huge burst of damage. We had managed to overcome that in the regular version, but this time around it got away from us and I was down while she was still at 22% health.

Another release and run back, though at least she is at the front of the instance.

You have to go all the way around counter-clockwise to end up at the beginning and the final boss

We got ourselves setup for another try, with the same result. I was down by about the time she hit 22%, and once I was down she finished off the rest of the party immediately.

Time was running by and dinner was at hand at our house, so we had time for one more run. I had my lay hands skill ready and was going to hold that until I was in peril at around the 20% mark. And, in the fight, that work… for a bit. It nearly got us there, but I was out of potions and other options and Fergorin was out of mana, so we got her to the 5% mark, then it fell apart.

So close to victory

We were close. It felt almost doable. We just needed a little bit more.

But I was out of time, so we would have to come back another day. In the mean time, we all went looking for some gear upgrades. There were some to be had from the various faction quartermasters and other vendors.

Ula read somewhere that the suggested gear score total for doing heroics was 3,000 and, while gear score doesn’t seem to be a visible thing by default in WoW Classic… not that I can see, though there are achievements based on gear score, so maybe I missed it… but my Auctioneer addon does show me gear score in its detail view.

Falling (Through the World) for a Boneguard Commander

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Part of my fading on WoW Classic last month was due to having hit my immediate goal in earning enough in the Argent Tournament to buy the Argent Hippogryph mount, which remains one of my favorite flying mounts in the game.

Flying above the Argent Tournament

However, with the Joyous Journeys xp buff and the rest of the group hitting the Argent Tournament I found myself drawn back into it, both to collect some more of the currency and rep and to earn some gold.

If you are familiar with the set of dailies, you’ll know that you have to head on down to the Court of Bones to use your Argent Tournament jousting skills to battle a series of foes, including Boneguard Commanders, which are generally the toughest of the lot.

The Court of Bones circled

That doesn’t mean they are all that difficult… the AI is pretty easy to game… but they aren’t as quick to knock over as some of the other mobs. Also, there are only a few of them about that are easy to get to without wading through a bunch of other mobs.

If I am out alone I tend to try and grab the few that are on their own, including one guy with his four helpers who is off to the left of the main concentration of mobs that line the pathway to Icecrown Citadel.

This little group over here

Also, allow me a moment to complain about the draw distance limitations of WoW Classic once more, because it is a real pain in the ass in the Court of Bones when you’re looking for mobs and you see nothing, but in reality they are about three steps just outside of the game’s ability to render them. Just beyond that commander group in the image above is the path to ICC that is littered with mobs, but they don’t render from where I am standing.

Anyway, this past week I had an odd thing happen. The Boneguard Commander above, when I started to battle him, clipped his way right into the ground like we were playing a Bethesda title. He submerged into the terrain like a submarine diving beneath the waves.

That is a bit of an unfair advantage when you’re trying to hit somebody and they can just walk through an impenetrable floor to evade you.

I did find that I could throw shield breaker attacks at him still, so I did that, then decided to charge him… and that was when I too passed beneath the terrain and started falling through the world beneath Icecrown.

Falling into the nothingness below the map

You get some strange insights into the world when you get to look below the surface of the world. There used to be a way to clip through Stormwind and end up below it back in the day.

The difference here is that there wasn’t a nice patch of ground for me to land on. I just kept falling and falling, passing various bits of the zone that were tucked away down there, until I passed some threshold and the game decided I was out of bound and respawned me back up in the Court of Bones again.

At the respawn point

I am actually overlooking the spot where I fell through in that shot. And I would complain about the draw distance thing, except that I had bigger problems than that.

The whole Court of Bones area for the Argent Tournament is only accessible to you if you have one of the two quests for it. If you don’t, you see different things on the terrain, and anybody you’re with who has the quest is phased into another layer in the game. The old phase issue that Wrath introduced, where you could be on the same map location as your group, but not see anybody.

Well, I was in an odd situation because I HAD the quest, but somehow falling through the terrain broke that, so I was phased out of the area I wanted to be in. Also, when I attempted to log off or exit the game, I got an error about not being able to do that.

I got on my Argent Hippogryph and flew out of the area and back in, to see if that would shake things up, but no luck. So I flew over to where Chillmaw spawns, because we were going to do that as a group, only to find myself still unable to log out. So I force quit the game and logged back in.

On my return I found myself back at the Court of Bones, back at the respawn point where I had started, the game apparently having lost track of me at that point. But that was fine. I still needed one more Boneguard Commander. So I went down to get that same guy again and… I didn’t mean to charge when he started to submerge again… but reflex drove that action and I was once again falling.

Falling through empty space again… look at that chamber over there

And I had to go through the same routine again. But I learned my lesson: Don’t charge submerging Boneguard Commanders!

Since then I haven’t seen any of them start to ride into the ground, but I remain alert to the possibility.

Addendum: Since I initially wrote this over the weekend, I have fallen through the world a couple more times. At first I thought it was that particular Boneguard Commander, but I lured another one away from the big path and he submerged too. It is a bit of terrain that is bugged it seems.

Also, it has happened enough that I have worked out a routine to deal with it.

Don’t charge if they’re submerging… but sometimes you don’t noticed until it is too late
When you finish your fall through the world, the game will log you out
Log back in and go play a different character
After about 10 minutes the server will resolve your fallen character
You can log back in with that character and be in the right phase again, at which point we’re back to the first point

The Initiative Leaves the Imperium Compact

Answering Gaming Questions with AI – Using That Master Ball in Pokemon Go

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Back to the AI challenge again, this time with a question of immediate practical concern.

AIs thinking about video game questions… drawn by an AI

Past topics in this series:

This time around I am turning to the AIs to answer a question I had on Friday. As I wrote then, Pokemon Go had a challenge that awarded a Master Ball, the most coveted Pokeball of all time, one that offers you a 100% guarantee of a catch.

Behold its glory

The question was, what Pokemon is worth expending that most precious ball upon?

This time around I am going to start with ChatGPT because with it I run into an immediate issue, the fact that it doesn’t know anything beyond September of 2021. So It has not data on a Master Ball in Pokemon Go. So I had to frame the question around that, ending up with this:

What is the hardest pokemon to catch in pokemon go?

From that, ChatGPT gave me:

As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, the hardest Pokémon to catch in Pokémon Go is Mewtwo. Mewtwo is a legendary Pokémon known for its powerful psychic abilities. It has a low catch rate, meaning it can be quite challenging to capture. In addition to its base catch rate, Mewtwo’s evasive movements and high CP (Combat Power) make it even more difficult to catch.

It’s important to note that Pokémon Go is regularly updated with new content, including the introduction of new Pokémon and changes to catch rates. Therefore, the difficulty of catching specific Pokémon may have changed since my last update. I recommend checking the official Pokémon Go website or the in-game announcements for the most up-to-date information on the catch rates of different Pokémon.

Well, I’ll give it points for trying. Mewtwo is a tough one, but I already have a few of them, including a shiny, so it is unlikely to be on my list. And, of course, ChatGPT has to warn me over and over about the limits of its knowledge.

Grade: C-

Then it was time for Google Bard. Google has been sending me notes telling me that Bard has been upgraded recently, so it was time to see if it could rise beyond mere comedy relief in these posts.

The hardest Pokémon to catch in Pokémon Go are:

Mew: Mew is arguably the rarest Pokémon in Pokémon GO, since it cannot be captured in the wild, and many players still do not have one to this day. It can only be obtained through special events or by completing special research tasks.

Mewtwo: Mewtwo is another rare Pokémon that is difficult to catch. It has a 6% catch rate, and it is only available through 5-star raids.

Shaymin: Shaymin is a mythical Pokémon that was only available during a special event in 2019. It is not currently available in Pokémon GO, but it is possible that it will be released again in the future.

Deoxys: Deoxys is a mythical Pokémon that has four different forms, each with its own set of stats and abilities. It is only available through special research tasks, and it can be difficult to catch even with a high level of expertise.

Galarian Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos: These three Legendary Pokémon were originally only available through special raids during the 2020 Season of Legends event. They are now available through regular raids, but they are still quite difficult to catch.

These are just a few of the hardest Pokémon to catch in Pokémon GO. There are many other rare and powerful Pokémon that can be difficult to capture, but these are some of the most challenging.

That was a decent answer, though it included some Pokemon, like Mew and Shaymin, that were event rewards, so only hard to catch in the sense that you had to be there at the right time to do so. There was no call to use a Master Ball on them.

Bard also provided images of each of the Pokemon, indicating the source from which it swiped them, and even gave me a source for some of its response, a Screen Rant post about Pokemon Go.

That, however, only answered the question I asked, not the question I needed answered. But, I figured that Bard should know about more recent events, so I straight up asked it:

Which pokemon should I use the master ball on in Pokemon Go?

And to that it gave me:

The Master Ball is a rare item in Pokémon Go that is guaranteed to catch any Pokémon. It is a good idea to save your Master Ball for a very rare or difficult to catch Pokémon. Some good options for using your Master Ball include:

Mew: Mew is a mythical Pokémon that is very rare and difficult to catch. It can only be obtained through special events or by completing special research tasks.

Mewtwo: Mewtwo is a legendary Pokémon that is also very rare and difficult to catch. It is only available through 5-star raids.

Shaymin: Shaymin is a mythical Pokémon that was only available during a special event in 2019. It is not currently available in Pokémon GO, but it is possible that it will be released again in the future.

Deoxys: Deoxys is a mythical Pokémon that has four different forms, each with its own set of stats and abilities. It is only available through special research tasks, and it can be difficult to catch even with a high level of expertise.

Galarian Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos: These three Legendary Pokémon were originally only available through special raids during the 2020 Season of Legends event. They are now available through regular raids, but they are still quite difficult to catch.

Ultimately, the decision of which Pokémon to use your Master Ball on is up to you. However, these are some of the best options if you are looking for a guaranteed catch.

Here are some additional tips for using your Master Ball:

Don’t use it on a Pokémon that you can easily catch with other Poké Balls. There’s no point in wasting a Master Ball on a Pokémon that you can catch with a regular Poké Ball or Great Ball.
Save it for a Pokémon that you really want. If there’s a specific Pokémon that you’ve been wanting to add to your collection, then the Master Ball is a great way to guarantee that you’ll be able to catch it.
Don’t be afraid to use it. The Master Ball is a rare item, but it’s not meant to be hoarded. If you come across a Pokémon that you really want and you think it’s worth using the Master Ball on, then go for it!

Well, that didn’t add anything to the result, save for some unhelpful coaching at the end.

You don’t need it for Shaymin and Mew, I already have Mewtwo and Deoxys in all of its forms, with shiny versions of each, so I guess Galarian Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos are the suggested targets.

Grade: C+

Then it was time for Bing AI to step in, and it answered the first question with:

According to some sources¹²³, some of the hardest Pokémon to catch in Pokémon GO are:

– Venusaur, Blastoise, Charizard, and Dragonite with a base capture rate of 4%¹.
– Palkia, a Legendary Pokémon that has a Water and Dragon typing and only one weakness: Dragon-type moves².
– Mewtwo, a Legendary Pokémon with a 6% catch rate and powerful stats and moves³.
–Shadow Mewtwo, a Shadow Pokémon that can only be obtained by defeating Team GO Rocket and has a 20% damage bonus³.
– Mr. Mime and Farfetch’d, two region-locked Pokémon that can only be found in specific countries³.

Are you trying to catch any of these Pokémon?👀

(1) The Easiest and Hardest Pokémon to Catch In Pokémon Go – Lifehacker
(2) Pokémon GO: 15 Challenging Pokémon To Catch – TheGamer
(3) Pokémon GO: 10 Hardest Pokémon To Catch, Ranked – Screen Rant
(4) Pokemon GO: Hardest Pokemon To Find – Game Rant
(5) Hardest Pokemon to catch in Pokemon GO – Sportskeeda

Brevity and references are the hallmark of Bing AI, which is more of a search engine assistant than an AI in the way ChatGPT is trying to be, but it did get in there and get me some options, including a familiar one. And it used one of the same sources that Google Bard used. But the answers were not Pokemon I was going to use a Master Ball on, in part because I have them all already, save for the Shadow Mewtwo.

So I asked Bing AI the more direct second question and got the following:

The Master Ball is a very rare item that has a 100% catch rate on any Pokémon you use it on¹. It can be used in normal encounters, Incense/Module encounters, and even Raid encounters¹.

The only way to get a Master Ball in Pokémon Go right now is to complete the Let’s Go! Special Research quest once the final tasks are released on May 22, 2023²³. The Master Ball is a reward for completing all of the tasks in Step 5.

You should use your Master Ball wisely, as there will be limited opportunities to get more in the future²³. Some possible candidates for using your Master Ball are:

– Galarian Articuno, Zapdos, or Moltres found when using Daily Adventure Incense, which have a very low catch rate and a high flee rate².
– A high IV legendary encounter following a raid that you want to level up, such as Mewtwo².
– Shadow Mewtwo, a Shadow Pokémon that can only be obtained by defeating Team GO Rocket and has a 20% damage bonus².
– Mr. Mime and Farfetch’d, two region-locked Pokémon that can only be found in specific countries².

I hope this helps you decide which Pokémon to use your Master Ball on. Good luck!👍

(1) The Master Ball is Coming to Pokemon Go – GamePress
(2) How to get a Master Ball in Pokémon Go, and when to use it
(3) How to get the Master Ball in Pokemon Go – Dexerto
(4) How to get the Master Ball in Pokémon GO: All the details
(5) How to Get the Master Balls in Pokemon Go? – Dr.Fone
(6) Pokemon GO: How To Get and Use Master Ball – Game Rant

Bing AI came back with more references and some recommendations.

Galarian Articuno, Zapdos, or Moltres made the cut again, so maybe I should take that seriously.

Then there is Shadow Mewtwo, which I would consider, but as I mentioned on Friday, Niantic’s desire to force in-person raiding means that you have to show up at the gym during the raid. We have a regular raid group of 10 people, but we’re all middle age, have jobs and kids, and are spread out geographically, so we have never all been in person for a raid. We’re doing good if we can get four, and on a rare occasion six, though that requires some semi-interested spouses. (Does it say something that the wives are the biggest Pokemon Go fans and really drive the group?)

Anyway, that means we have to show up in person an find somebody else willing to raid. That works out on big raid day events. But for general, ongoing raids it is almost never a thing… and it sounds like Shadow Mewtwo needs a bigger than average group with its damage bonus. So not likely to happen.

And I am not sure why Mr. Mime and Farfetch’d keep coming up. Yes, they are rare, but the tough part is finding them. Once found, catching isn’t all that hard. So I am reducing credit for that.

Grade: B-

In the end all three gave me something of an answer… and they all seemed to agree that Mewtwo should be in consideration. The low marks are more a response to having few good suggestions, or several bad ones.

But it could be argued, even though they all got a passing grade, that the question itself was not well suited to AIs. Again, in my post on Friday, I have a tough time coming up with a target worthy of expending my one and only Master Ball on. Is it fair to expect AIs to answer questions you cannot? Or is that what they should be there for?

I did like the mention of catch percentages. That could influence my decision, but I am not sure how widely available that information is.

Life is Feudal Returns with a $20 a Month Subscription

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Life is Feudal was a sandbox MMO that came out of the Life is Feudal series of games back in 2017 and then shut down in January of 2021.

Life is very much that at times

I really did not pay that much attention to it as a game. I mentioned it as an outlier possibility in my gaming outlook for 2017, but by the time the year closed and I did my review of 2017, it did not make the cut. I wasn’t even sure if it had actually launched… though a lot of the titles I had on that list didn’t launch. That initial post was also the first time I took note of Lost Ark, which was a few years away at that point.

But it is back, having re-launched this month to take another run at the MMO business.

And, having not played it when it was here the first time, I do not have a lot to say about its revival. I probably won’t run off and play it this time around either. It’s return is a bit of a non-event for me really.

What DID catch my was the announcement that it was returning with a $20 monthly subscription. Now that is some news. As I have noted in multiple posts in the past, the sort of industry standard $15 a month has been pretty much set in stone since 2004… and even that seemed unsustainable for quite a few titles as we had the mass migration to free to play options around 2010.

Inflation be damned as far as gamers are concerned; any time somebody mentions a subscription price increase players want to know what they’re getting for the additional money. Software is a victim of the overall view of tech where hardware gets cheaper and more powerful as time goes on.

Software, however, is made by people, and it is difficult to cost reduce them the way you do a chip set. They expect to get raises and need to buy things like food, which seems to keep going up in price. So anybody making software has been on the lookout for ways to charge more money as their costs continue to rise. For buy to play titles, that has meant special editions and season passes and piles of DLC and cosmetic cash shops and, of course, loot boxes in order to extract more money to cover increasing costs.

But upping the price of an MMO subscription beyond the standard $20 a month? So far only EVE Online has take that step, and it was not popular.

New Prices as of May 17, 2022

In fact, CCP has had to rely on sales and special discounts for multiple accounts to keep an even keel. But players also freaked out when CCP went full in on selling fitted ships, and they had already started selling skill points, so they didn’t have a lot of cash avenues left. And their revenue has been trending down all the same.

So while I do not have much of a brief for how things will go for Life is Feudal, I am curious to see if they can make the $20 a month model stick. They are already hedging a bit, calling the new price a “test.” It will only be a test if it doesn’t work. If they can swing it, it will be the new reality. And if they can do it, who else will give it a shot?

MMO Bomb – Life Is Feudal Is Coming Back, But Will Cost You $20 Per Month
Massively OP – Life is Feudal Returns Under New Management

Niantic Remains Irksome on the Pokemon Go Front

The Dawn of Diablo IV

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Depending on where you are and whether or not you pre-purchased the right version, you could be playing Diablo IV in about six hours from when this post goes live.

Diablo IV

The client download was enabled on Tuesday, and if you purchased anything beyond the standard version, the early access is yours.

Diablo IV Early Access Launch Map

There it is. At 4pm Pacific time today, you will be able to log in… or you will be able to try logging in.

I don’t necessarily want to be that guy… but there is a bit of a history of launch day problems with Blizzard in general and Diablo in particular.

Oh, I remember that

Blizzard has said that they are “confident” that they can handle the opening night load… and I guess we will see if that confidence was warranted. (Though they have since hedged a bit in later interviews.)

For the rest of the player base, those who opted for the standard edition, the game will open up on June 5th at 4pm Pacific Time.

Diablo IV world wide launch map

So the game probably won’t feel the full load of players until the weekend after that.

And where will I be as all of this goes down? Playing something else most likely.

I am somewhat interested in Diablo IV… but not enough to feel I have to jump in on day one and into that scrum. I can wait. But I will be interested to see how Blizzard’s confidence plays out.

Congrats to Blizzard. I was somewhat skeptical when they announced the June launch date, expecting a slip between then and now. But they made it. Good on them.

On the other hand, Bobby Kotick remains a horrible person and pretty much a living indictment of unfettered capitalism, if you need a reason not to buy Diablo IV.

May in Review

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The Site

I often start writing these monthly review posts well in advance. They have a structure and a formula and very little of it requires me to be at the end of the month. If I want to write but don’t have a topic I am invested in, I will often start in on one of these, filling out the framework.

Such was this month where, back on the 20th or so, I wrote this section, having felt that the big site event of the month had come and gone.

For this month it was when somebody linked an old post I did about voxels back when EverQuest Next was re-announced, in relation to something called Minetest, which is something like a voxel Minecraft I guess. That generated a lot of referrals and I figured the most viewed post of the month had been set, it having passed the 800 mark already, when most months any post that passes 400 views is almost guaranteed to be the top of the list.

Aiming at a distant tower guard in Delta Force

Then, for whatever reason, my About page became popular… with bots no doubt… for about a week. Enough to vault it into the top Most Viewed Posts this month, as you will see below. It is, technically, a post. That gave me something for this section. I even took a screen shot to accompany the whole thing, but felt I should take one later in the month, when the final results were closer to set.

Then I wrote that one post in a fit of pique about Alta Fox trying to bully Enad Global 7 to set forth wrecking the company, draining its coffers for stock buy backs, so they could be enriched with no possible upside to the health or long term viability of the company.

Then that took off. I ended up with a 2,000 page view day with that one. There was a time when I was getting more page views than that as a daily average, but that was a decade back. Now it is a good month when the average approached 500. That is still more than I ever expected, but it hardly registers on the internet.

Basically, looking at my most viewed posts this month, the internet seems to be telling me that if I want traffic I should spend more time critiquing the excesses of late stage capitalism and reminiscing about voxel based 3D game engines.

One Year Ago

Blizzard, attempting to get into the mobile game space on its own, announced Warcraft Arclight Rumble. Meanwhile, Diablo III turned ten years old.

On the flip side, Enad Global 7 and Daybreak announced that they were cancelling the previously hinted at Marvel based super hero MMORPG. EverQuest did get two new progression servers, Vaniki and Yelinak, and EverQuest II got the Varsoon server.

In Valheim we built the grey pit to harvest grey dwarves. This has become a semi-popular post for people trying to do the same. We were also in search of silver, which meant building a mountain base, and looking to defeat Bonemass.

I had a list of five problems that I felt CCP was never going to solve in EVE Online. I also wrote about damage meters in the game, which are alike and different from other MMORPGs.

But that was just a warm-up for EVE Fanfest. We had been promised a lot, but the opening keynote didn’t deliver. Overall, Fanfest just made a lot more promises without delivering anything substantial. The return to expansions sounded nice… but the first one was months off.

CCP did, however, finally relent on the prices of capital ships. Another of their economic theories dashed on the rocks of reality. Meanwhile, the final days before the subscription price increase saw people buying in to save some cash and EVE Anywhere became available for Alpha Clones, but the announcement was so confusing that some news sites reported that the feature had entered alpha. Also, CCP was being called out for still betting on an FPS as its future.

CCP did promise us something special for alts as long as we consolidated all our accounts to a single email address.

CCP also announced the candidates list for CSM17.

Actually in New Eden, the GEF headed to war in southeast null sec, first hitting Omist then pushing into Tenerifis. That led to some real fights.

I brought up Wordle-like games that focused on the movies.

Josh Strife Hayes went and played LOTRO as the game turned 15 years old.

This American Life did an episode about NFTs, which were a plague at the time.

I got paid for the ads on the site for the very first time and we were still binge watching at our house.

Five Years Ago

My other blog turned ten years old, so I did a retrospective… here… since my other blog is a picture blog.

There was the big rumor post about plans at Daybreak that included winding down EverQuest and EverQuest II in favor of a new EverQuest game. While some items on the list did come to pass ( Just Survive did not and PlanetSide Arena is effectively PlanetSide 3), the old school preservationist faction won out in Norrath and it looks like we’ll be getting expansions for some years to come. Meanwhile, they were also giving out level 100 character boost in EQII again.

While I was on a WoW break of sorts, Blizzard seemed to be doing well enough in the financial report for Q1 2018. Of course, they were feeding us tidbits to keep us interested while we waited for Battle for Azeroth, with pre-orders available since January.

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, an RTS from the turn of the century, was still getting expansions. You cannot keep a good game down.

I objected to a silly post about making the MMO genre “more accessible.” It was all either blindingly obvious or too specific to be practical as a general rule.

I was still mucking about in Rift Prime, having made it into Scarlet Gorge, though it felt like something was missing.

Microsoft was planning to discontinue support for Minecraft on some older consoles after the Aquatic Update was released.

On the Kickstarter front the was big success for the Empires of EVE Vol. II campaign and a huge flop for the ill advised Flower of Knighthood campaign.

CCP was celebrating the 15th anniversary of EVE Online and I was going on about the importance of all the tales that make up the ongoing story of the game.

I was over on the test server trying out the upcoming Abyssal Space content, which I likened to dungeons. Why not? CCP calls things dungeons in their patch notes.

At the end of the month we got the Into the Abyss expansion for EVE Online and people were losing ships to Triglavians almost immediately.

That was preceded by what I called the great third part apocalypse as CCP shut down the old API interface, killing any number of third party applications that depended on it. I was also on about their New Eden Store scarcity policy.

We got an update on when the elections for CSM13 would be held, while with the MER I was wondering if anybody would challenged the might of the Delve economy.

And then, actually in game, we were still running ops against GotG in the north, exchanging citadel kills and chasing after them into Venal and mounting some ops from there before returning to Pure Blind.

Ten Years Ago

I celebrated the five year anniversary of a blog. No, not this one.

EVE Online turned 10 (I even made a movie) and reminded us of its true nature, while DUST 514 finally went live for real.

Somebody was saying that there had only ever been two successful MMOs, EverQuest and World of Warcraft.

I checked up on the Newbie Blogger Initiative to see who survived their first year of blogging.

Camelot Unchained made its Kickstarter goal one day before their campaign ended. Success at the last minute is still success.

The project code named Titan was rumored to have been pushed out to 2016. Meanwhile Activision-Blizzard announced that WoW had shed 1.3 million subscribers, dropping to 8.3 million total. And then there was the problems with the Diablo III economy. Rough times.

The XBox One was announced. Or the name was. I didn’t like it.

I made a chart about the relative natures of MMO economies. I was also musing about dangerous travel.

We were starting to peek into NeverWinter as a possible game for the instance group, in hopes that we might have a hiatus from our long hiatus. We also played a bit of Need for Speed: World.

Rift, ostensibly the game the instance group was playing (and which I was still playing a bit of), announced it was going free to play, which made me mutter about revenue models again.

Our EVE Online corp decided to go play some Lord of the Rings Online, and so my relationship with Middle-earth continued and I was quickly in the Lone Lands.

And finally, I wrote a bit about the first computer game I ever played, which led to some charts about my video gaming timeline.

Fifteen Years Ago

My daughter and I were finishing up the final battles in the base game of Pokemon Diamond as well as staging our own gym battles.

In EVE Online CCP gave us a date for the Empyrean Age as well as giving us all a gift on the five year anniversary of the game. I still have that gift in my hangar.

Meanwhile I was building battleships, working the regional price variations, dealing with the realities of production, refining my Drake fittings, and laughing at a the EVE Online guide to talking smack.

Oh, and I was being propositioned in a standard Goon scam. Damn Goons!

In World of Warcraft the instance group was doing some quests to level up a bit because the Mana Tombs were proving to be a challenge. We also did some mucking about with alts.

And, in the industry in general, Turbine got $40 million dollars to play with (I wonder where that ended up?) while Age of Conan launched amid immediate declarations of success and failure.

Twenty Years Ago

Internet spaceships become serious business as EVE Online launches.

SOE launched PlanetSide, their MMOFPS.

3DO laid everybody off and filed for bankruptcy, leading to the end of the line for it and its subsidiary New World Computing, best known for the Might and Magic series.

And the WordPress blogging platform was first released in May of 2003.

Fifty Years Ago

In May of 1973 Bob Metcalf wrote a memo at Xerox PARC with the title “Alto Ethernet” that contained the basic schematic for the networking hardware that would come to be known as “Ethernet.” This was just one of the many designs and innovations that Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center would create, which Xerox would then completely fail to capitalize on but which would go on to become the foundations of modern computers.

Most Viewed Posts in May

Search Terms of the Month

wow zul’farrak can’t talk now trolls sergent bly
[ZF be like that mon]

using chatgpt with everquest
[Don’t let me stop you]

buying omega with plex
[Yes you can]

exiled kingdoms patch
[Haven’t actually played that]

website template wow
[Oh no, another potential blogger]

Game Time by ManicTime

Didn’t I say I wasn’t going to do this anymore? I lied, though whether it was to you or myself is up for debate. But apparently I find some usefulness in this section, so here it is again.

WoW Classic – 54.88%
LOTRO – 35.66%
EVE Online – 9.21%

Overall, since I was away for a good 10 days of the month, the total hours played in May were the lowest monthly total for the year… or since I started using ManicTime.

EVE Online

It was something of a quiet month in New Eden for me. With the war in the north winding down into a more contained “content” conflict and having moved all my stuff back to Delve, I didn’t have a lot to do. I went out and harvested my PI, I went on a couple of fleets, I got on my minimum of one kill mail for the month, and I logged in daily to redeem all my 20th anniversary goodies.

Lord of the Rings Online

The Lossless Scaling experiment started me off in Middle-earth. I have made it through into the Lone Lands once more, and ought to be a shoe-in to make it through Evendim if I remain enthused. After that though… well, Evendim is the last zone I think of as fun. We’ll see if I get beyond there.

Pokemon Go

Nothing much went on for us in Pokemon Go, except for me having a Pokemon in a gym in rural Oregon for nearly two weeks before they got kicked out. Level 44 is closer, but still a ways away, and Niantic seems keen to screw with our routine.

Level: 43 (77% of the way to 44 in xp, 1 of 4 tasks complete)
Pokedex status: 770 (+3) caught, 785 (+4) seen
Mega Evolutions obtained: 24 of 35
Pokemon I want: Three specific Scatterbugs; Sandstorm, Icy Snow, and Meadow
Current buddy: Krokorok

WoW Classic

Northrend was starting to wear on me a bit as we entered May. Then I was playing LOTRO for a while. But then the Joyous Journeys xp bonus hit and the group was using it to get everybody to 80 and to work on some alts and we all started doing the Argent Tournament, so that come the last week of the month it was my main game again.

Zwift

Not a good month for riding the indoor bicycle. I was away for two weekends and had an injured leg for a third, leaving not much activity in May.

Level – 18
Distanced cycled – 1,629 miles (+27 miles)
Elevation climbed – 62,297 (+735 feet)
Calories burned – 50,470 (+723)

Coming Up

There are a couple of big things coming up in June.

Probably the biggest, at least relative to topics I cover here, is the Diablo IV launch. It goes live on June 5th or 6th depending on where you live for the world wide launch, with early access for the special pre-orders as early as tomorrow. Blizzard is “confident” that the servers can handle the load they expect at launch. I am “confident” that this optimism will age poorly.

Meanwhile, over in New Eden CCP will be launching the Viridian expansion for EVE Online. So far we have been told that will bring Tech II capital ships and graphics upgrades to the game. I am sure there must be more to it, but we shall see.

We are also getting the next phase of Wrath Classic. Maybe I will be able to build Jeeves.

There will also be some more AI stuff next month. You know it is the buzzword of the moment because over at VentureBeat literally every other headline is related to AI, it having replaced Metaverse, which in turn replaced Crypto/Blockchain in their obsessive focus on the latest hotness.

The Ancient Gaming Noob

Veni, Vidi, Scripsi

Friday Bullet Points About Blizzard, SWTOR, and Apple as Summer Approaches

A Look into May 2023 Destruction in EVE Online

Going Heroic in The Nexus

Falling (Through the World) for a Boneguard Commander

The Initiative Leaves the Imperium Compact

Answering Gaming Questions with AI – Using That Master Ball in Pokemon Go

Life is Feudal Returns with a $20 a Month Subscription

Niantic Remains Irksome on the Pokemon Go Front

The Dawn of Diablo IV

May in Review

May	JUN	Jul
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2022	2023	2024