Shedding

The closest I lived to Jita was in Tasabeshi. This is in The Citadel region, just four gates from the famous 4-4 station. All things considered it was a relatively quiet constellation, with the Muvolailen gate usually clear.

It was brilliant for buying and refitting ships, but it was my least favourite home in EVE. I found it; soulless is probably the best description.

Because it did not pay to draw attention to yourself, there was little banter in Local. The regular inhabitants were not particularly hostile, but (understandably) they were more suspicious of other pilots than anywhere else I had lived. It also felt more as if everyone was in it for themselves. There was no chivalry when it came to exploration or mining.

While I purposely play EVE as a hermit, I still prefer some sort of shared amiable community.

I found EVE more enjoyable again once I moved back to Devoid / Domain.

I did however come away from my stay near Jita with a weight problem. My collection of ships and fittings I would rarely use had grown. I had started a process of reviewing and shedding assets when the impact of the Triglavian invasions became more apparent. With the need of being able to quickly relocate and travel further distances, my asset selloff has accelerated.

The value of my ships, spares, and memorabilia on my main pilot is now down to around 4B ISK. I can not remember when it was last that low. I have one Orca configured, fitted out and loaded up as a mobile home. I am pleased with how that worked out. My second Orca can hold everything remaining, aside from two ship hulls. That was what I was aiming for, and a success in kind – but the problem is the value of that load is far too high. It is an obvious target for ganking. I do not want to have to split the load to make multiple trips – the whole idea is to be able to flee an invasion quickly. There is more work to be done there.

There is also the separate problem of my BPO collection, which is worth an additional 5B ISK (not factoring in 99% of them being at ME 10 / TE 20). I guess I will move them in a travel fit Interceptor. Low risk if manually piloting and not travelling far, but an embarrassing kill mail.

I have sold off 20B ISK of assets in Amarr over the last month, with another 5B ISK on the market or waiting in station for me to post it. (God that is a chore.) I have covered hundreds of different items. My initial impression of the market since the fall of Niarja has been most prices have gone up, and most items are selling noticeably quicker than I would traditionally expect.

I think Amarr might get to having supply / availability issues quicker than I had assumed. It has a touch of “COVID19 toilet paper” about it. While it means I am making a bigger profit today, I wonder what it will mean in a month or two? Will local manufacturing step in and up (the prices make it worthwhile)? I fear not.

The Blues

My first home in EVE was 33 jumps away from Jita. This was back in the day when you warped to 15km instead of 0. I only visited Jita when I absolutely had to, and instead mined and built my T1 needs for myself, or waited for those magic words from a friend in chat when they piped up with “Hey, I am in Jita, can I pick anything up for you while I am here?”

It is easy (and dangerous) to put an overly positive spin on the old days. There is much about current day EVE that is far superior. But I did enjoy the feeling of being in a far-flung border region, and the need for patience and the reward for careful planning and preparations.

I have moved my home base in EVE many times, and inevitably it shifted closer and closer to Jita. Almost everything is available there. Now I jump in one of my Shuttle Interceptors and am (or was) in Jita in mere minutes. If I make a mistake or forget something, I just quickly run back. Even if I could save a few ISK by shopping around, the convenience usually outweighs the savings.

Overall, access to Jita makes the game of EVE easier.

For that convenience, the fall of Niarja is a pain in the arse. It has also left me wondering if I located myself on the right side of it or not.

The problem with being close to Jita is that vibe of the Capsuleer Community changes for the worse. There are more people in local, but they talk much less. There are more people hunting for opportunities to grief other players, or to scam, or just to be obnoxious. I am also not a fan of farming the Guristas. Domain as a region is (or was) close to Jita, but generally feels a nicer place to be day to day.

There is another reason, a gamble, that I leaned towards Domain and the Amarr trade hub.

 

The Triglavians have won the battle for more Stars than their statistics in the Agency suggest. However, they have then abandoned them unless they have Blue Stars, or certain type/s of Yellow Star. When this became apparent, I sat down and manually mapped out every Star type in Domain and the main areas I play or move through.

Niarja has a Blue Star, and right from the start I presumed it would fall.

But the very first system I checked in my research was Jita, and it has a Blue Star.

Just how brave, or chaotic, could CCP get? It would not matter if every Carebear and Trader and Mission Runner in Jita rose to defend it. Null Sec would decide its fate if the Triglavian’s came calling.

Fallen – in a way

Niarja has fallen to the Triglavians. While that was what I assumed would happen, it was over much quicker than expected. It is reported that it was the influence of Null Sec on the Triglavian side which forced the loss through so quickly – as a “Fuck You” to Hi-Sec.

Niarja is now the equivalent of a Null Sec / Wormhole system as far as CONCORD response and Security status loss is concerned, although Hi-Sec restrictions on structures and bombs and bubbles etc remain.

This does not mean the traditional Jita > Amarr trade route is closed for good; but it will be different.

I expect the system will be a heavily hunted gank fest for some time, but when it finally settles down into some level of normal, it will be open to use.

Solo you will usually get through in an Interceptor – but hauling any sort of volume becomes a death wish.

If you can dual box using an alt, with some patience and in quiet hours you will be able to scout / sneak a reasonably quick to warp hauler through.

If you are in a Corp with a dozen mates, you could break up a camp and force some haulers through.

Hell – if your alliance is big enough and combat inclined, you could control the gates and charge tolls or let your own freighters through all day.

(This assumes the Triglavian defensive guns are not that much different to the Faction gate guns.)

What this will stop are those long chains of independent Freighters that ran that trade route all day, every day. That will have an impact. If it relegates Amarr to a distance trading outpost remains to be seen.

If I was a much younger player, there would be a lot to be excited and enthusiastic about. If Hi-Sec ends up as a bunch of Islands, or traversable only on long meandering trade routes, you can expect scarcity and prices to go up. There are plenty of opportunities for the industrialist to profit handsomely. You could also place jump clones and ship caches all around Hi-Sec and continue playing almost as you did in the past.

There are lots of ways it can play out – although it will probably make the game more grindy.

Triglavian Vessels Everywhere

It is hard not to notice the proliferation of Capsuleers flying Triglavian Vessels. During my recent culling of excess ship hulls, I kept almost all my Triglavian ones. While they can be a little expensive to tank, the flexibility and damage of their Entropic Disintegrator weapon system is notably strong, and I like their utility high slots.

So, it came as no surprise to see CCP announcing they would be balancing the Triglavian ships on August 25.

https://www.eveonline.com/article/qf7ltt/dreaded-collective-new-update

I went to check out the damage in the forums..

https://forums.eveonline.com/t/dreaded-collective-new-update/260824

.. and found mostly some light touch changes and some buffing. The only notably nerf was to the Drekavac Battle Cruiser, which lost Drone Bay size and bandwidth. Funny enough, that was the only hull I had discarded as there were better options elsewhere.

Overall, not what I was expecting.

..

I did a little research on what impact the “loss” of Niarja would have on travel between Jita and the next 4 major High Sec trade hubs. It turned out the increase from 10 to 46 jumps between Jita and Amarr was the only impact. Dodixie remained at 16 jumps, Hek at 20, and Rens at 26.

The route from Amarr to Rens would not change – being 21 jumps. Dodixie however would increase from 17 to 35 jumps, and Hek would increase from 21 to 27 jumps.

That would make Amarr much more isolated.  It would not surprise me if it lost its place as the second largest trade hub.  I probably should have done those calculations earlier.

..

With the Niarja invasion (which is quite close to where I currently reside), I thought I would test my evacuation preparations. They failed. Even though everything fit within a Bowhead and Orca, I still had to split loads and make multiple extra trips, else I was making myself an expensive loot piñata. I need to further dramatically reduce the amount of spares and number of active ships I use.

..

As I remarked, I let my Alt account subscription lapse. CCP sent me several warnings before that happened. That suggests they are quite capable of warning me before taking money for a subscribed account. I am such a cynic.

Niarja

Niarja – the chokepoint system on the trade route between Jita and Amarr is currently under attack by the Triglavians. Initially the Pro Triglavian forces appear to be winning.

The Hi-Sec only trade route between Jita and Amarr takes 10 jumps. If Niarja is lost to the Triglavians, the Hi-Sec only trade route turns into 46 jumps. I have expected from the start that Niarja would more likely fall than not. The thought of so many Hi-Sec tears would be a strong motivator for many pilots.

I had already consciously made the decision to base myself on the Amarr side of Niarja.

I wonder if it will become a defining point in the game?  What will be the stronger mentality – saving or destroying such a key Hi-Sec system?  It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

…

I have let my second account lapse into an Alpha state. I will resub when I have a need to.

I noticed that as long as I did not select a character to log in with, that I kept getting Omega Daily rewards. I waited a couple of days to see if things would change, then deliberately broke the state by logging in. Now the account is on Alpha Daily rewards. I thought CCP would have rectified that sort of thing by now.

New Club

I noticed this tonight.

I am in the 300M SP club.

(Well – technically I am not.  That total includes unallocated SP, which I have a bunch of again from all of CCP’s giveaways and Log On bonuses.  But – close enough!)

I am missing a few skills at the moment.  A number of the Vorton related ones, along with the Edencom Battleship and Precursor Dreadnought skills.  They are either hard to find or too expensive to buy (when you have no good reason).  Otherwise every skill I have is at rank 4 or (more often) 5.

I remember logging in at ridiculous hours back in the first couple of years, excited to make use of some new ship hull or fitting.

..

A couple short items from my blog notes.

I was reading Dunk Dinkle’s blog the other day.  He was on CSM 14.  This comment on what he learnt while on the CSM caught my eye:

“CCP looks at EVE Online development with two key goals in mind: bring new players into the game & generate revenue.  CCP is a business and they need to continuously grow. Whether players want to hear it or not, catering to the person who has been playing for 5+ years is not CCP’s primary goal. Development is always going to prioritize work that directly influences the new player pipeline over other needs in game.”

https://dunkdinkle.com/what-i-learned-on-the-csm/

That has been apparent.

..

I was reading a recent post on Nosy Gamer’s blog.  A related comment caught my eye:

“..EVE Online. The game experienced a 31.9% increase in revenue QoQ and a 26.8% increase compared to Q2 2019. The $3.9 million increase brought the total EVE IP revenue up to $16 million for the quarter. While Pearl Abyss credited efforts to shore up the player base as a leading cause of the increase I would credit both the lockdowns associated with the CONVID-19 pandemic as well as the relaunch of EVE in China on 27 April as larger factors.”

https://nosygamer.blogspot.com/2020/08/pearl-abyss-q2-2020-earnings-call.html

Interesting words from Pearly Abyss – “shore up the player base”.  Is that newer players, or do CCP’s statistics show they are keeping more (I assume) PVP players?  Surely the COVID19 impact however would have to noteworthy?

..

For as much as I have been dismissive of CCP’s efforts, the statistics so far suggest I am wrong.  I don’t think I am – but I am certainly looking at things through Bitter Vet tainted glasses.

Fanfare – No Choice For You

I was chatting to a friend on Facebook earlier when I heard this strange fanfare music building in volume.  It took a few moments before I realised it was coming from my EVE client, which was logged in at the time.

On the client was a notification box congratulating me on being an Omega Account.  I thought that was rather odd – but shortly after I got an email saying my EVE subscription renewal was successful.

Has CCP always processed renewals without sending a reminder first?  I thought I always received a notice.  Maybe I only got emails because the card had expired, or the account was active but not subscribed?  Had I just rarely gone through an automatic renewal because I would pick up sub extensions when they were on special and not run out before?

Also – why had they renewed my account for 3 months?  I have almost always paid for 12 months at a time on my main account, including most recently?

Now I am left wondering if this is some deliberate business decision from CCP to trick you to stay subscribed, or just my failing memory?

Regardless, I feel a little irritated.  I have two Active/Omega Accounts and one Alpha Account.  I will unsubscribe both Omega accounts so that I can pick and choose if, when and for how long I resub in future.

I have had to take a very neutral attitude towards EVE for some time now.  You could say I am one step back from being ambivalent.   I try to ignore the decisions CCP makes as they double, tripled, quadrupled down on their belief that focusing on PVP players and loss will save and grow their game.  I do little things in game that amuse or interest me, even if they are nothing to write home (or blog) about.

It is on days like today however that I have to stop and ask myself just what am I doing.  What does it say about me that I play a game that I find a little more aggravating than it is fun?  A game I have to maintain a level of disinterest in, else I get too frustrated and rage quit?

Anyway – I’ll have to think about it more in three months, when I am reminded that my unsubscribed account is about to run out of Omega time.