The Ancient Gaming Noob

Time flies when you’re having fun… or when CCP keeps stuffing you full of skill points.  Omegas get 15K from the New Eden Store every week, there are the AIR daily goals that will get you 300K every month easily enough, the login rewards, the event rewards… I swear, if you told 2007 me that I would be rolling in this many skill points I am not sure he would believe you.

But I think he was still training up the now long gone learning skills back then.  We wouldn’t see the end of those until late 2010.

Back then I was good if I could get in 10 million skill points in under eight months.  Now… well, as noted, CCP is just giving them away.

So here I am again.  The last post was only in January and I’ve made another ten million skill points.

The state of skill points – May 2026

I dumped a bunch of free skill points into Gallente Carrier V for Wilhelm, as much to have that screen shot show 300 million skill points as to hurry it up.  I usually like to carry about a million skill points for “just in case” scenarios, but with the current event continuing to dump skill points on us I’ll be able to build up the reserve again before we get to the next expansion.  There might be some new skills I need with that.  We’ll see.

My other characters on my main account both have plenty of unallocated skill points, but when I go in and total them all up this is what I come up with.

Wilhelm Arcturus    - 300,011,011 
Escher Alias        -  93,145,017
Percy Dovetonsiles  -  29,640,530

Total               - 422,796,045

Almost 423 million skill points across all three.  Again, that is largely due to how free CCP is with skill points.

As for me current skill point allocation on Wilhelm, it now looks like this:

Spaceship Cmd          95,622,171 (79)*
Gunnery                37,678,667 (53)*
Drones                 25,966,256 (27)*
Navigation             20,089,568 (15)*
Fleet Support          16,385,250 (16)*
Missiles               12,550,911 (22)
Electronic Sys         11,928,629 (15)*
Armor                  11,204,549 (14)
Engineering             8,939,855 (15)
Scanning                7,168,000 (07)
Neural Enhancements     6,882,275 (08)
Resc Processing         6,433,916 (13)* 
Shields                 6,074,039 (12)
Science                 5,714,282 (21)
Trade                   5,047,765 (11)
Planet Mgmt             4,352,000 (05)
Subsystems              4,096,000 (16)
Targeting               3,840,000 (08)
Rigging                 3,209,100 (10)
Sequencing              2,058,211 (10)
Production              1,922,644 (06)
Structure Mgmt          1,458,138 (06)
Social                  1,364,785 (10)
Corp Mgmt                  24,000 (02)
Unallocated                10,000 (00)

Total                ~300,011,011 (398)

The categories marked with an asterisk are the ones that have changed since the last check-in.

As usual, Spaceship Command saw growth.  There are always new ships showing up to train into.

Gunnery saw an increase as well, likely filling out some missing skills for tech II variations.

Drones includes fighters and since the coalition was getting real about using carriers as a doctrine, I invested some time in making sure I had related skills trained up.  I’ve only had my Archon since 2013.  You’d think I would have done that by now… but your would be wrong.

My Archon jumping into Geminate

I never actually got to use my fighters in a battle, the log jam at Atioth pretty much making that impossible… but I did join a fleet and undock!  That was at least a step forward towards using it in combat!

Navigation also saw a boost as I put some time in on Jump Portal Generation to allow my Archon to conduit the maximum number of subcaps, something I did actually get to do during one move op during the Geminate campaign.

Conduit jump in progress

That accounted for most of the skill points this time around.  I am not sure what I trained in fleet support, and the other two were just minor items.

So there I am, past the 300 million skill point barrier, such that it was.

Thanks to EVELens, which I wrote about previously, I am able once again to break out my skill by level without having to go into the game and manually count them.

Level 1 - 2
Level 2 - 10
Level 3 - 14
Level 4 - 79
Level 5 - 293

Lots of level V skills, which is kind of where you end up after you run out of skills to spread out with.  My training queue is basically a long list of skills that need to be trained to level V.

I am once again at a point where I feel like I could stop on my main and maybe invest some training on one of my alts.  But we will have an expansion coming out next month, which CCP is probably talking about RIGHT NOW at Fanfest, which may bring with it more skills to train.

As always, for those who want to know the history of this post… well, the series goes all the way back to 2007 when I hit ten million skill points and thought that was a thing!

• Start Playing EVE Online – August 2006
• Ten million – November 2007
• Twenty million – June 2008
• Thirty million – January 2009
• Forty million – August 2009
• Fifty million – March 2010
• Sixty million – November 2010
• Seventy million – August 2011
• Eighty million – June 2012
• Ninety million – December 2012
• One Hundred million – rolled right past with the battle cruiser split
• One Hundred and Ten million – September 2013
• One Hundred and Twenty million – April 2014
• One Hundred and Thirty million – October 2014
• One Hundred and Forty million – May 2015
• One Hundred and Fifty million – December 2015
• One Hundred and Sixty million – July 2016
• One Hundred and Seventy million – January 2017
• One Hundred and Eighty million – August 2017
• One Hundred and Ninety million – February 2018
• Two Hundred million – August 2018
• Two Hundred and Ten million – November 2019
• Two Hundred and Twenty million – September 2020
• Two Hundred and Thirty million – January 2021
• Two Hundred and Forty million – April 2022
• Two Hundred and Fifty million – September 2022
• Two Hundred and Sixty million – February 2023
• Two Hundred and Seventy million – September 2024
• Two Hundred and Eighty million – August 2025
• Two Hundred and Ninety million – January 2026
• Three Hundred million – May 2026

When will I get to 310 million?  That depends a lot on what CCP does and how many skill points they hand out.

This will be an abbreviated weekly update as we’re away for the weekend, so I will have to cut things off early, before the bids are resolved and probably before some final score updates for the week.

Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games

But I will try to keep to the usual format, so we’ll kick off with the scores from the previous week.

Week 19 scores

Having left off there we were heading into week 20 where Outbound, the cozy co-op title.

Outbound… in an obviously VW inspired van

I looked at the demo of that a while back, and it had its merits.  However, the gap between a demo and a full fledged product can be quite wide.  We saw last week that early reviews had come in somewhat weak.

• Outbound
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Now has a score of 70

As noted previously, there are not any scathing negative reviews.  Outbound doesn’t seem to be a divisive “love it or hate it” sort of title.  There are some genuinely positive reviews out there for it… but they tend to also deliver a 7/10 score.

Last week after landing at 70 it crept down to 68 before releasing this week, giving it a negative score on the board, pushing Bhagpuss down a bit.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)
    • Moved from 9th place to 8th place
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Score has gone DOWN from 23.8 to 21.8
    • Moved from 8th place to 9th place

Not great.  But Outbound was not done yet.  Shortly after launch some more reviews came in and pushed the title down some more.

• Outbound
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 68.0 to 66.4

Then, just to compound things, Mixtape saw a bit of a drop as well.

• Mixtape
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 92.1 to 89.1

Still an excellent score for Mixtape, and nobody is turning in bad reviews of it.  This looks to be more a matter of the effect sites that award 1-5 stars, full stars only, giving it a 4/5, which translates to an 80 in the land of Fantasy Critic League.  So it goes.

Then some minor shift in reviews saw Shintar and I swap places in the rankings.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)
    • Moved from 3rd place to 2nd place
  • Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)
    • Moved from 2nd place to 3rd place

We ended last week .3 points apart, so it didn’t take much to change positions.  The new gap was .04 points, so destined to change again.

Then the other release slated for week twenty started pulling in some reviews.

• Directive 8020: A Dark Pictures Game
  • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
  • Now has a score of 76.0

Not a bad score… certainly not during a week when Outbound is on the board… but there are clearly some mixed reviews in the 3/5 star range.

Directive 8020: A Dark Pictures Game

That wasn’t enough to change the board… but something else got some reviews and Shintar and I swapped positions again.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)
    • Moved from 3rd place to 2nd place
  • TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)
    • Moved from 2nd place to 3rd place

And then Mixtape took another hit.

• Mixtape
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 89.1 to 87.8

That was enough to push Bhagpuss down another peg on the board.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
    • Moved from 10th place to 9th place
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Moved from 9th place to 10th place

Dropping below 90 is a pretty big hit because points are doubled between 90 and 100, so having a 92 was a pretty big deal.  Now, however, Mixtape is has just… a very good score still.  We’ll all be longing for more titles landing in the high 80s.

And the hits kept on coming.

• inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 81.6 to 79.3
• Outbound
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 66.9 to 65

Things were tight enough down field that both of those drops managed to change up the board once more.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Moved from 7th place to 6th place
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Score has gone DOWN from 29.6 to 27.2
    • Moved from 6th place to 7th place
  • Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)
    • Moved from 11th place to 10th place
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Score has gone DOWN from 13.7 to 11.9
    • Moved from 10th place to 11th place

There was starting to be a “who is this actually for” vibe in some of the reviews, including The Aftermath asking that directly about Mixtape.

Then a drop too small for the bot to announce, but large enough to change the rankings once more.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)
    • Moved from 12th place to 11th place
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Moved from 11th place to 12th place

That swapped back shortly thereafter, but it once again suggests how close things are on the board.

And then another double dump.

• inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 79.3 to 76.1
• Outbound
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 65.9 to 64.2

Outbound felt like it was trying to drop below Pokemon Champions.  That was enough for definitively drop Bhagpuss behind Arhanta on the board.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)
    • Moved from 12th place to 11th place
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Score has gone DOWN from 12.7 to 10.8
    • Moved from 11th place to 12th place

All of which left us with the scoreboard looking like this mid-week.

Week 20 scores – early edition

Bhagpuss, after jumping to mid-pack last week, has fallen back down… but is at least not in last place.  The league doesn’t feel very positive about his prospects however.

I had to cut that off on Wednesday night to be sure I had time to do it.  But that includes the two releases for the week, so seems like a pretty reasonable place to make the call.

As of this writing there was a single date update, with one of our many Warhammer titles in play this year.

• Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II
  • [Picked by Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)]
    • Release date changed from ‘Spring 2026’
    • to ‘Thursday, May 21, 2026’

That makes for four titles in the queue for next week.

Week 21 Coming up

First up will be Forza Horizon 6, which was my first pick in the league draft.  I have high hopes for this pick as past games in the series have landed 90s on Metacritic.  Hoping for a strong result and maybe ending up in first place for a while.

Also on tap is Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, a Switch 2 title and the ninth in the Yoshi series of games from Nintendo.  Could be hot.  Could be not.  The Nintendo review sites can be pretty fierce about what pleases them and what makes them yawn.

Then there is LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which was a title I also wanted, but Corr got in there ahead of me.  It too is getting good buzz and has the potential for a strong score.  The only negative I have seen is that the system requirements on PC are a bit steep for a Traveller’s Tales LEGO title.  But a good game will overcome that.

And finally… Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II. Who knows?  I have no read on that, so we shall see.

Next week’s post will be back to a full week’s coverage, plus whatever fell between the cracks on Friday or Saturday that I would have otherwise covered this week.  The review embargo for FH6 and LEGO Batman will lift after I write this, so I expect to come back to some scores already boiling.

Related:

• TAGN Fantasy Critic League
• TAGN Discord Server
• Fantasy Critic Site
• Fantasy Critic How to Play
• Fantasy Critic FAQ
• Open Critic Review Site

NetHack, which will hit the 40 year mark next year if you adhere strictly to its origin, or past 40 years if you mark from the start Hack, from which it was forked, which in turn was a rework of Rogue, the origin of the term “Rogue-like”) and started off in the tradition of the ASCII terminal emulation tradition of its predecessors, has reached a new milestone.

Going back to origins, unlike MUDs, which were text based interactions where you entered commands and got responses, the Rogue genre sought to create a more visual experience by using text to build out the dungeon view as a top down view, with your character represented by the @ sign.

Hack back in the day

I mention terminal emulation both because I am old and because the ability to control the cursor and use it to draw things on a screen that was, back in the day, often restricted to 80 columns and 24 rows of character.  So back in the day you needed a terminal emulation program that supported something like the VT52 cursor controls so the game could draw, maintain, and update characters all over the screen.

Primitive by today’s standards, this was actually fairly sophisticated functionality back in the 80s which allowed a certain amount of universality in support.  I could play this on my Apple II back in the day using the CompuServe terminal program. (It would also let you play Island of Kesmai, which took the Rogue top down ASCII graphics idea to online multi-player gaming.)

By the early 90s, as computers grew in capability and dumb terminals began to fall by the wayside, NetHack migrated to a form that you would run locally.  It would still put up a window and still ran in ASCII text, but there was not need to connect to a host computer or have a terminal emulation program.

This was was prime era of playing NetHack.  I downloaded the binaries… using at FTP program likely, though it could have been Gopher… as well as the source code, which I used to tinker with… and spent quite a bit.

And then I kind of left NetHack behind in the back half of the 90s, favoring MUDs and graphical titles with online options such as Diablo, which itself was inspired by NetHack.

NetHack expanded in depth as the restrictions on size and just kept on moving along.  Then, last week, somebody mentioned the 5.0 release on Discord and I was intrigued.  What would NetHack look like in 2026?  I found the NetHack.org site, linked at the end of the post, grabbed the zipped Windows binaries, extracted them into a folder and launched the game.

Starting off in 2026

That looks like a lot of options, though I am also pretty sure most of them existed back in the 90s.  They have all evolved, but I remember playing as a tourist way back in the day.

One thing that is new a tutorial that lets you wander about a safe area with instructions etched on the ground so as you pass over them it gives you instructions.

The NetHack 5 tutorial area

This is a long way from the 90s.  Colors are important in this new era and you can see the line of sight calculations on the map where what I can see are marked in white periods while things out of my site, but other wise previously explored, are green periods on the map.

The line of sight thing was always one of the more sophisticated aspects of the game.

The tutorial is very good at giving you a sense of all the things going on in just moving about the game.  It does, however, tend to quickly overload you on the various key commands to accomplish tasks.

On leaving the tutorial and entering the main game I did not get very far, largely due to command recollection issues.  But things end pretty much the same way they did back in the day.

RIP Wilhelm

I ran out of food, then passed out while fighting a jackal, which is not the way to win a fight for sure.

Another new aspect of the game, at least to me, is that it now also comes with a graphical UI version, basically a tile set replacing the character set.  There were a couple of knock-offs of NetHack back in the 90s that did something similar.  So, for comparison, this is the tutorial area as seen in the graphical version of the game.

The tutorial area, with the tile set

The tile set is a bit teeny tiny, at least on my big monitor, and you get the sense of the difference in aspect ratio between text and graphical UI, but otherwise the game is mostly the same.

Mostly.

The graphical version is a little easier to navigate when you’ve forgotten one of the myriad key commands, giving you a list of choices which you can click on or type in.  That was a bit easier on me as I have long forgotten all of the commend conventions like q for quaffing a potion or z for zapping a wand or whatever.

I did considerably better on my run with the graphical UI, making it down into the gnomish mines.

In the gnomish mines, where the gnomes are not happy to see you

Still, it all ended in tears, as it tends to.

The graphical grave stone

At least I didn’t starve.  And that gnome had help.  But once again I failed to find the Amulet of Yendor.

So it goes.  As in the Rogue-like tradition, when you die you go back and start from scratch.  You might find some evidence of past runs now and then.  I seem to recall the ghost of your past self making an occasional appearance.  But when you’re dead your done.

I took a few more runs at it, but I am not sure, here in 2026, it is going to become the minor obsession it was for me around 1993.  But it is nice to see that it lives on and that a generation not even born when the game was started is able to experience life as the @ symbol in an ASCII dungeon.

Related:

• Nethack.org – NetHack Main Page
• Nethack.org – Version 5.0.0 Page

The climb to level 80 continues for us in Pokemon Go.  My wife and I made it to level 75 back in mid-March and, two months later, we find ourselves landing at level 76.

Level 75 achieved

To get to level 75 the tasks were the main barrier.  The requirements were:

• Earn 34 Platinum medals
• Hatch 75 Eggs
• Make 999 Great Throws
• Send 500 Gifts to friends

And of those, the 999 great throws turned out to be the gating task.  We were both done with the other three tasks before we had even made it half way through the great throws.

But, aside from the platinum medals, those were pretty much things you could do by just playing the game.  Catch enough pokemon and you’re going to get to that many great throws.

Also, it helps to have around 280 people on your friends lists for sending gifts, while the egg hatching… we now get a daily 1km egg, which made 75 eggs pretty easy to hatch.

So we arrived.

My stats getting to level 75

I got there a bit ahead of my wife.  I just land a higher percentage of great throws I guess, because she catches more pokemon than I do.

That brings us around to the next level.  What will it take to get to level 76?

On the xp front we’re both covered.  The big level 80 update last October left us both with enough excess xp to ride to at least level 78.  So no worries on that front.

The xp requirement for level 76 done already

With that not being a barrier, we’re back to focusing on the tasks required for level 76.

The tasks required for level 76

Spelling those out for later re-use, they are:

• Earn 38 Platinum medals
• Defeat 100 Team GO Rocket Grunts
• Explore 300 km
• Catch 200 Pokemon in a single day

Taking those from the bottom up, 200 pokemon in a single day is… doable.

It will take a bit of planning.  It would be nice to do it during an event over at the community center where pokemon are plentiful and where there are lures running.  And, of course, you need to stock up on Pokeballs.  I would want to have 600 on hand.  But I am not too concerned about making this one happen.

Exploring 300 km… this will take some time, but it will just happen on its own given my one simple trick for getting steps in Pokemon Go.  Still, of the tasks, this one could be gating… or would be gating if not for one other task.  But it will likely be the second to last to complete.

Defeating 100 Team Go Rocket grunts… that is doable.  In fact, it might help me with the final task.

Finally, the 38 platinum medals… this is going to be the challenge for me.  I have around six that I am within a couple months of getting to platinum, including the one for defeating the aforementioned grunts.  I need to defeat 260 more to hit the 2,000 needed for the platinum medal.

But it feels like I will be long done with the other tasks before I get to 38 platinum medals.

Once again, I hope to get to my long promised platinum medal planning post where I scope out the 16 medals I have the best chance of getting, because to get to level 80 you need a total of 50 platinum medals.

It is mostly written.  I just have to buckle down and finish it.  But it is one of those things where I keep finding other things to write about first.

It is Thursday, but EVE Fanfest is already kicking off so I figured I would slip in a quick post about the coming event and what to watch for along with some other related tidbits.

• EVE Fanfest in Reykjavik – May 14-16
  • CCP – EVE Fanfest Megablog
  • CCP – EVE Fanfest 2026 – Join Us on the Live Stream

Fanfest is coming up in just about two weeks as EVE Online players and CCP employees converge on the Harpa in Reykjavik, Iceland to celebrate the soon to be 23 year old title that carries on as much despite itself as because of what it delivers.

For those of us not headed to Iceland some of the key events will be streamed on the CCP Twitch channel… no, that is dead now and doesn’t redirect to the new channel because… incompetence I am going to guess… so make sure you go to the Fenris Twitch channel.

The Fanfest Streaming Schedule

The primary item for me is the EVE Fanfest Keynote at 16:30 UTC on Friday.  A keynote speech generally sets the tone and delivers key updates.  CCP generally does poorly on this, dedicating the first third to half of any keynote patting themselves on the back.

Eventually they get to the things we care about.  I expect that a reveal of the next expansion, due in June, will be the actual anchor for the keynote.  But, given that Hilmar will be out there talking about the Google DeepMind investment in the company, I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t insist on retreading that again.

• Hints of EVE Online Classic?

As part of the Megablog there was this tidbit that I want to call out on its own.

Crucible Gameplay Stations
The year is 2012. Fanfest is hosted at Harpa for the first time ever. Gangnam Style is taking over the World. TEST alliance held space. It was a completely different time! What better way to pay homage to that first Fanfest at Harpa than to have an EVE Online build from that time. Be sure to set your clone state!

I am sure that this will light a fire under somebody that the idea of EVE Classic is a good one.  It is not.  But there is always somebody out there willing to go to the mat over misplaced nostalgia or some problematic game mechanic they miss.  Warp to zero will remain a thing, get over it.

• Riches for Crypto while EVE Online Sites Starve
  • CCP – CCP Games Announce Winners of $80,000 EVE Frontier × Sui 2026 Hackathon

Also on the EVE Fanfest agenda is CCP handing out $80,000 in prizes for people who created mods for EVE Frontier.

On one hand, I get it.  CCP is trying to bootstrap a replacement for its only successful title, EVE Online, and think that maybe some bribes will go a long way.

On the other hand, EVE Frontier is a blockchain boondoggle that is trying to make the whole “play to earn” thing real despite the fact that it has never worked and a couple minutes of examination leads you to gaping holes in the idea.

Meanwhile, fan sites that maintain an essential ecosystem to support EVE Online go hungry.

The only bright side is that some of the payout for the winners will be in CCP’s soon to be worthless crypto.  Reap what you sow.

• PLEX For Good Goes On and On
  • CCP – PLEX For Good is Here For Good!

Also likely to be covered at Fanfest is the PLEX For Good idea will now be on autopilot, always available to donate to.

PLEX for Good has had some notable success in the past rallying capsuleers to donate to worthy causes.

• 2005 – $25,326 – Southeast Asia (tsunami)
• 2010 – $34,350 – Haiti (earthquake)
• 2010 – $38,900 – Pakistan (monsoon)
• 2011 – $44,600 – Japan (earthquake and tsunami)
• 2011 – $32,900 – United States (Hurricane Irene)
• 2013 – $190,890 – Philippines (Typhoon Haiyan)
• 2015 – $103,650 – Nepal (earthquake)
• 2020 – $107,454 – Australia (bushfires)
• 2020 – $135,550 – Global (COVID-19)
• 2022 – $501,652 – Ukraine (humanitarian relief)
• 2023 – $26,140 Turkey/Syria (earthquake)

That said, I am always a bit wary of companies running fundraising for charity as being more a tax dodge than being a genuine effort.  You provide the money, they turn around and donate and take the tax credit.  Still, as long as CCP is picking good charities and is clear on where the money is going, this is probably good.  You can, after all, but PLEX with ISK and donate it.  Where else can you do that with your in-game currency?

Monthly Economic Report for April 2026

• CCP – April 2026 Monthly Economic Report
• CCP – April 2026 MER Forum Thread
• Reddit – April 2026 MER Thread

The MER for April landed this week as well, so I figure I might as well slot that in here even if it isn’t directly related to Fanfest.  CCP highlighted the following for April:

• April saw increased battle activity, with the two largest battles being the Battle of Atioth at the beginning of the month and the Battle of 4-HWWF at the end. This contributed to higher Destruction Value, alongside lower Mining and Production Values.

• After increasing in March, ISK Faucets in April declined back to levels comparable to February.

• The Mineral Price Index increased by 9% month-over-month.

April included much of what ended up being called the Vexor War, as noted in the first bullet point from there.  Destruction keeps the New Eden economy going, though that was still not as much destruction as back in November when we were clearing out the Drone Regions after the collapse of Pandemic Horde.

The mineral price index rising might be related to the war as well, because the Gallente election was ostensibly promoting mining as a goal, which one might think would have the opposite effect.

• Getting Thrown to the Fenris

I will be interested to see how things play out in general at Fanfest with the new company name.  Changing the name of a long running corporation is not something you do lightly and we’ve seen CCP… they are still CCP because even changing the name on a corporation takes time so they are currently just doing business as Fenris Creations while they work on that… comes with a lot of costs.  Everything from lawyers needed to make the change to the need to update contracts as they come due to changing the letterhead and the name on the building to updating all the related URLs while not doing a self own and breaking all the links to said URLs.

For example, they managed to do that on Twitch so if you have anything linked to the old CCP account there… well, there is something else there now, but it isn’t anything you’d recognize.

Good thing they didn’t put CCP TV all over things…

It is a mess that will take five years to untangle at a minimum.  I know, I’ve lived through this sort of thing.

I don’t wholly believe either of the reasons for the name change so far… this all strikes me as a Hilmar thinking something is cool moment and everything else feels like an after the fact rationalization… though at least the name “Fenris” being on the box of The Danger Game suggests that they might have owned or had claim on the rights… though they couldn’t go with “Fenris Corporation” because it appears that is a Marvel thing, or Fenris Publishing, because that was already a thing too.

So let’s see where they take this.

One of the updates that came with the Capsuleer Day XXIII: Warpath event has been an empire conflict around Jita, with there being trouble at the jump gates leading into New Eden’s trading hub.

Welcome to Jita 4-4, the most fabulous station in New Eden

There was a lore post about this earlier this week, which led with this:

CONCORD’s new oversight of Jita is the result of weeks of negotiation between the Caldari State, CONCORD, business leaders, and Ducasse acting as a representative of Jita’s non-Caldari residents. Under the agreement, the legendary station Jita 4-4 will remain under the control of the Caldari Navy, but with a plan to review that status over the next six months. This review includes a buy-out clause, should all parties agree.

And, sure enough it you go to Jita you will see that the CONCORD is now listed as running the place.

The sovereignty location note

Likewise, on the new in-game map, Jita says CONCORD now owns the system.

New Sovereignty in Jita

CONCORD is, of course, the neutral space police who tried to maintain law and order across the four main empires.  When you shoot somebody in high sec it is CONCORD that comes for you.

CONCORD’s corporate bio

This makes sense from a game play perspective as Jita is the main trade hub of New Eden and putting it under CONCORD control means that if you have bad standings with the Caldari State you are no longer going to get shot in system by the Caldari State police.

And who knows, maybe CONCORD will respond faster to ganks… though the whole plan with Exordium, the coming new player region, has meant that Jita was downgraded to 0.9 security status.

While there will now be a trade embassy in Jita for each of the other three empires, Jita 4-4  remains a Caldari Navy Assembly Plant administered by the Caldari State.

Quafe Company Trade Embassy in Jita

All of this is summed up pretty clearly in the patch notes.

• The system of Jita has become independent from the Caldari.
  • The system will be administered by CONCORD, who will control sovereignty within the system, in collaboration with EverMore.
  • EverMore has stepped in as the acting police force, managing piracy and customs enforcement within the system.
  • As a result, capsuleers with poor standings or at war with the Caldari will no longer be attacked while in Jita.
• New Trade Embassies for the Amarr, Gallente, and Minmatar have been established around Jita III, Jita VIII, and Jita II, respectively.
  • These stations include Factional Warfare enlistment services!
• The Caldari Navy retains control over the station at Jita IV-4, and taxes in the station are unaffected.

Basically, Jita under new stewardship, but aside from a few changes, things remain mostly the same.

All of this seems like a pretty good change.  There was some concern at the start of this even that CCP was going to try to mess with the idea of Jita as the center of the New Eden economy, something they did before Jita started to fill that role.  Instead CCP has solidified the place of Jita in the New Eden economy.  Major economic disruption averted.

For me, however, this all buries the lede.  The actual important aspect of the update was the last bullet point on the list in the patch notes, the addition of a clone bay to Jita 4-4.

• A Clone Bay service has been made available in the Jita IV-4 Caldari Navy Assembly Plant.

I cannot emphasize enough how long many people have been waiting for that services icon to appear in Jita 4-4.

Clone Bay at Last!

This hasn’t been anything like a game breaking issue, but the fact that you cannot install a clone in the most popular station in all of New Eden… that has been a minor annoyance since… forever.

There was always a work around.  You could install a clone in some of the other stations in Jita.  But clone management without undocking was not really a thing until now.

For a lot of people this is probably a non-event.  But if you live in a world where you need to get to Jita and your space organization is under a war declaration, having this available will be an upgrade.

How all of this relates to the Caldari State take over of the Syndicate region remains to be seen.

Related:

• CCP – Jita Under CONCORD Administration
• CCP – Patch Notes
• CCP – Gates into Jita Damaged As Tensions Between Empires Rise
• CCP – Jita Citizens Protest State Response, Ducasse to Negotiate
• CCP – Silphy en Diabel Arrested in Relation to Jita-gate Incident

During the final timer they were much more prepared to shoot bombers and during the timer Shines DMed me and said that the BR showed they had already killed 800 of our bombers and I responded “Shines, I have 8000 bombers” and I believe his reply was the Ace Ventura allllrightythen.gif.

-Asher Elias, Victory in Geminate post

The word came down on Thursday evening that we were done for now in Geminate, that move ops would commence over the weekend, and that people should start packing their capitals to haul their stuff home.

As noted, we completed the task at hand.  As it turned out, as recounted by Asher in his Victory in Geminate post, while the 4-HWWF Keepstar was on our list, the fact that The Initiative decided to ref it while we were involved with another fight was completely unplanned and forced the Imperium to push up their plans by a couple of weeks and scramble to pull together the ships needed to take down the Keepstar.

So last week victory was declared in the campaign, our objectives had been completed, and some propaganda was shared to celebrate our achievement.

Asher says V for Victory…

Of course, not everybody is a fan of the “Young Asher” era, so there was an alternate “Fat Asher” version posted to Reddit as well.

It was a fine campaign and one cannot fault WinterCo.  They fought and made us pay a significant price for our victory.  They did make some choices as to what was worth defending and what they were willing to sacrifice.  There are some alliances in WinterCo who are not thrilled that Fraternity wasn’t there to defend them.  But, again, some alliances chose to put themselves right in out path and… how did you image that would turn out.

TEST locations, November to January

Overall, a good time with lots of fights and enough ship losses to keep the New Eden economy humming as we set fire to trillions in assets.  But all parties end and knowing when the fun is over is part of the experience.

It was time to head home.

With an eye to getting people moved before they started to fly off for Fanfest, move ops started on Friday in EUTZ.

As is my tradition, I got in on the first move op I could find.  The coalition is very good these days about running many such move ops to make sure people make it home safely, but I came up during the Winter War and the Fountain War when there was maybe one move op each for US and EU and if you missed it you were on your own.  Being left behind a few times has made me keen to get going as early as possible.

The coalition is also good about setting up long running ops… on Saturday move ops ran beyond the 8 hour mark… that are mostly DIY affairs.  You join a fleet appropriate to your ship type, jump drive or no jump drive, and either have a cyno chain available to get you home or a series of titans that open up bridges up and down the chain at regular intervals.

Caps landing on a Keepstar in the move chain

The only sticking point was the need to take the regional gate between Atioth and K-IYNW, which covers a distance too far to jump or bridge across.  That meant regular gate crossing events, where a cover fleet would be spun up and deployed, the gate declared green, followed by ships going back and forth between the systems.

Capital ships landing on the K-IYNW side of the gate

The crossing aside, there was little friction aside from jump timers to my getting my main and my alt home.

All of which leaves us with the status of Geminate after the war.  The Imperium has decided to keep the three constellations in Geminate closest to us.

Geminate – May 4, 2026 – Now with lines

That meant letting go of BWF-ZZ, a system that connects to high sec, and Fraternity was quick to snatch it back when we started moving home.

BWF-ZZ was let go

There was an over-earnest thread over on Reddit about why the Imperium would let go of a system with such obvious value, being close to Jita.  I say “over-earnest” because the thread author was absolutely not having any excuses for not holding that system… as opposed to exploring the actual reason.  Anyway, we let it go and that was that.

We are leaving behind forces in Atioth to help hold that chunk of Geminate, but otherwise it is back to Insmother for the coalition.

There was also some talk on the fireside this past weekend about maybe slimming down GSF.  We bulked up as an alliance and coalition in part because Fraternity and Pandemic Horde significantly out sized us in the not too distant past.

The top five alliances by members – Oct 25, 2024

And then Pandemic Horde collapsed and we were left in a weight class of our own, being close in size to WinterCo and The Initiative combined.

We shall see if anything comes of that.  It is one thing to say it, it is another thing to act on it.  The latest participation report… we get those monthly… showed a number of corporations that completely missed the war.  So there are targets.

In the past we have tended to scale down by losing.  The Casino War was excellent for shedding the deadwood.  However, something like that is a bit difficult to engineer.  The best we have managed recently is moving our home twice in a year, and people still caught up.

The other path has been to have groups break off and go it on their own.  The Initiative did that, though every time they appear on the same side of a battle report with us somebody runs to Reddit to declare that we’re still allied.

So I am not sure how any slimming down will be accomplished.  We will see how things look in a year I suppose.

My Vexor War posts so far:

• May 12, 2026 – Home From Geminate and the End of the Vexor War Campaign
• May 5, 2026 –  All Quiet on the Geminate Front
• Apr 29, 2026 – WinterCo Staging Keepstar in 4-HWWF Destroyed
• Apr 22, 2026 – CCP Reviews Atioth and Bungles B-R5RB
• Apr 20, 2026 – Notes from the War in the Geminate Flood Plain
• Apr 15, 2026 – Notes from the War in Geminate
• Apr 10, 2026 – The Imperium Picks Itself Up, Dusts Itself Off, and Drops Two More Keepstars
• Apr 7, 2026 – The Imperium Loses 33 Titans Battling WinterCo and the Server in Atioth
• Apr 4, 2026 – The Imperium Marches on Geminate
• Mar 14, 2026 – Ongoing Fighting in Southern Geminate (pre-war)

Today is the last day you can start doing the Capsuleer Day XXIII login rewards portion of the event if you want to collect the big 325K skill point award at day 22.  The direct quote from their post:

11 May is the last day to begin logging in and still claim the big Skill Point haul before the end of the event.

That would be today, so if you haven’t started collecting the daily login rewards, today is the day to start.

Capsuleer Day XXIII In progress

Meanwhile, I have been doing some of the event and… it is always interesting to see how a company changes things up when they do something similar.  The Warpath event is a bit of a re-run of the Gallente Presidential Election event, but CCP clearly had some lessons learned they chose to apply.

I think, in short, they probably felt that the election event was a bit too easy.

So, while they kept much of the structure of the previous event, they upped the ante on the tasks required.

For example, you can still get through all five tiers of the mission running portion of the event and end up with 500 of the 1,000 event points, but Colonel Cathcart got in there and now the number of missions required for that has been raise from 25 to 57.

Kind of a lot.  They are not difficult, the whole thing is just 128% more grindy.  But the missions still remain the easiest thing to do on your own schedule.  Nobody else is going to swipe your mission agent from you.

On the plus side CCP also tossed in an extra 10 PLEX when you finish the fifth tier.

A little something for the effort

That isn’t a lot of PLEX, but it is still 40-50 million ISK in value.  I won’t turn my nose up at that.

Likewise, for the data sites, you will need to hack 52 cans… though they now come two to a site so that actually isn’t so bad.  Those site remaining competitive still and even if you get in first there is some likelihood that somebody in an Astero will show up and grab that second can if you’re not fast.

Fortunately the actual hacking is pretty easy, so I have at least twice finished hacking the first can and started on the second, beating a new comer.

Mostly I try to do the hacking at off hours, later in the evening my time when the Euros have long gone to bed and even the US east coast is starting to nod off.

I also decided to poke my nose into the combat challenge sites during the quiet hours.  Those are all pretty heavily farmed during peak hours, but in the late evening US west coast time when things are pretty quiet you can cruise around and find some sites.

The sites come in three flavors:

• Warpath: Defense Complex – Frigates
• Warpath: Defense Grid – Cruisers
• Warpath: War Grid – Battleships

I already have my mission running Ishkur to hand, so I warped one to test it out and… it took me a minute to figure out what was going on.

The Amarr version of the site

This was not helped by the fact that new new Warpath NPCs for the event did not show up on my overview by default, always a problem with the game.

But I turned on bracket, spotted the hostiles, added them to the overview, and went to work.

The goal is to secure the site by defeating waves of attackers, which come as 3 normal and then 1 elite.  Killing the elite is what advances the task, so when people warp into your site they will hang around and try to steal that kill for you.

My Ishkur turned out to be pretty… well, probably overkill for the frigate sites.  This is the fit if you are interested.

[Ishkur, Inevitable]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Assault Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II

Small Cap Battery II
Phased Scoped Target Painter
Cap Recharger II
1MN Afterburner II

Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II

Small Explosive Armor Reinforcer I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II


Caldari Navy Hornet x5
Hobgoblin II x5

Void S x3500
Null S x5500

I take no credit for creating that fit.  I grabbed someone’s T1 abyssal fit and swapped out the web for a target painter to help direct drones.

When I land in a site and it is empty… if somebody is there I just warp off because I am just that kind of person… I set the Ishkur to orbit the beacon at 500m, prop off and launch my drones.  This is a tight enough orbit that the Ishkur won’t be going full speed and will be sitting on its side in orbit.

Ishkur in a tight bank in the site

The incoming hostiles all land within the optimal range of my Light Neuron Blasters and the drones just follow along with whoever I am shooting.

The nice thing about this fit is that so far I have been able to out damage anybody who has showed up to try and grab an elite.  It hasn’t happened much… again, I am in there during the quiet time… but I have had a couple of people show up, try, then warp off for greener pastures.

Anyway, my evening forays allowed me to complete the event path on one of my alts already.

Completed… so far

So that first character is set until the reward track is extended, which is targeted to happen on May 26th.

First character?  Well, once you finish with one you might as well start a second.  I don’t think I’ll do four characters this time… but two should be doable.

I also haven’t gone to the quartermaster yet to turn in any of the event tokens.  Unlike the past even, there are multiple places to redeem your tokens so you can avoid any place being camped by hostiles.

Your Warpath event reward locations

I haven’t seen the rewards myself yet… I am saving token turn ins until after the next leg of the event is added as redeeming them is a reward track as well… but CCP posted the officer modules you can get with the event.

Officer modules for the event

There are also special bastion modules available for the marauders of each of the empires.

Bastion module choices

I have, in all these years, never flow a marauder battleship.  They attract hostile fire and I prefer to keep a lower profile than that.

Still, something to invest in maybe?  I’ll make that decision when we get into the last stretch of the event.

Meanwhile, I have been turning in the NPC redeemable drops from hacking and combat sites.  Those have added to the ISK the event has generated, though I certainly haven’t been silly enough to haul 1.5 trillion ISK of it through a suicide gank zone.  The loot fairy said yes, yes, yes on that one.

Related:

• CCP – Capsuleer Day XXIII: Warpath is Here
• CCP – Claim Capsuleer Day’s Biggest Rewards
• CCP – Warpath Protocol Failure Brings War To High-Sec (the lore)
• CCP – Patch Notes (the details)
• EVE Uni – Capsuleer Day XXIII Wiki Page
• TNG – Flying Solo In EVE: Capsuleer Day Event
• TAGN – The EVE Online Capsuleer Day XXIII – Warpath Event Kicks Off Today

My goal here is to put Bhagpuss in as many FCL headlines as possible as I have noticed Google favors my site when I do, and when you search on him now these posts come up on the first page of results.

Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games

But messing with Google might just be my kink.  Anyway, we had a week with some new releases and some updates from last week’s titles.  But first, the scores from last week.

Week 18 Scores

That sets the starting point, and pretty quickly out of the gate we had the expected update for inKONBINI as Open Critic finally setup an entry for the title.

• inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
  • Now has a score of 85

Any score of 85 and up is very desirable, and that boosted Shawn up the board as soon as it hit.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Score has gone UP from 17.3 to 32.2
    • Moved from 8th place to 6th place
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Moved from 6th place to 7th place
  • S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)
    • Moved from 7th place to 8th place
  • Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)
    • Moved from 11th place to 10th place
  • Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)
    • Moved from 10th place to 11th place

And then, after all the good vibes, Cubed came in with a 7/10 score and down we went.

• inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 85.0 to 82.5

Not too far down, and that was only review number six, but it was just enough to get Corr back in to sixth place.

• Publisher Score Updates
• Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
  • Moved from 7th place to 6th place
• Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
  • Score has gone DOWN from 32.2 to 29.9
  • Moved from 6th place to 7th place

But the margin was narrow enough that they swapped back again a while later.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Moved from 7th place to 6th place
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Moved from 6th place to 7th place

Then we had a score update for both Saros ad Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred, both of which went down a bit.

• Saros
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 87.6 to 86.6
• Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred
  • Picked by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm),
  • Counter Picked by Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)
  • Score has gone DOWN from 83.3 to 81.7

Neither change was enough to update the scoreboard.

Then as Thursday loomed, it became time for Bhagpuss as his first pick to ship, Mixtape.

Mixtape

It landed before enough reviews had hit.

• Mixtape has released!
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]

We had to wait for scores to come in, but by the next morning there were 19 reviews over on Open Critic and it was looking good for Bhagpuss.

• Mixtape
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Now has a score of 94.3

That was the best score of the season so far, and with that many reviews it feels like it might stay above 90.  On the strength of that Bhagpuss, last year’s winner, rose up from the cellar to land in 8th position.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Score has gone UP from 0 to 28.6
    • Moved from 13th place to 8th place
  • S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)
    • Moved from 8th place to 9th place
  • Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
    • Moved from 9th place to 10th place
  • Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)
    • Moved from 10th place to 11th place
  • Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)
    • Moved from 11th place to 12th place
  • Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)
    • Moved from 12th place to 13th place

That was a pretty amazing score… too amazing really, as it took a couple hits as more reviews came in.

• Mixtape
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 93.5 to 92.5

But that still leaves it as the top scoring title in the league so fare in 2026.

Meanwhile, I had a title coming up to, and it got a score.

• Everything is Crab
  • [Picked by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)]
  • Now has a score of 78.3

Not bad.  I could have asked for more for a quirky indie game… but at least it wasn’t Kiln.

Everything is Crab

Then the crab went into the pot.

• Everything is Crab
  • [Picked by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 78.3 to 76.2

Everything is not crab it seems, though more reviews boosted back up to 79 as the week moved along, which is a solid score.

Then we had a score update in anticipation of next weeks releases as Outbound started to get some early reviews.

• Outbound
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Now has a score of 70

There were no scathing reviews, no 3/10 hit pieces… but neither were there any five full star reviews either.  It was all pretty modest, suggesting that the cozy crafting sim, while delivering on its promise, might have promised a bit more.

All of that left the scoreboard looking like this at the end of the week.

Week 19 scores

Ula remains firmly in first place, though with five releases on the board, while Shintar and I are less than half a point apart in second and third place.

There were two bids this week, both uncontested.

• Bids in TAGN League
  • Unannounced Mainline Half-Life Game
    • Won by Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais) with a bid of $1
  • Beastro
    • Won by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) with a bid of $5
    • Dropped game ‘Always In Mind’ conditionally

An unannounced mainlined Half-Life game is worth a buck this early in the season I guess, while Bhagpuss dropped Always in Mind, my counter pick for the season, taking Beastro on board in its place.

There were also some updates on ship dates.

• Mina the Hollower
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
    • Release date changed from ‘Spring 2026’
    • to ‘Friday, May 29, 2026’.
• PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant
  • [Picked by Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)]
    • Estimated release date changed from ‘Summer 2026’
    • to ‘2027’.

Mina the Hollower is now nailed down to the 29th, while PVKK is now out into 2027.

In addition to bids, there were some direct drops.

• Drops in TAGN League
  • TAGN HQ (Wilhelm): Zero Parades – For Dead Spies (Drop Successful)
  • TAGN HQ (Wilhelm): Mariachi Legends (Drop Successful)
  • Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey): PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant (Drop Successful)

Since PVKK was pushed out, that was a logical drop.  Meanwhile, though I picked up Zero Parades last week, further research prompted by Bhagpuss made me turn around and let go of it.  I also sent Mariachi Legends away with it.

That leaves us with the following as the next ten titles.

Week 20 coming up

We have Outbound and Directive 8020 landing this week.  The opening score for Outbound was not so hot, and it has since crept down to a 68.  That is based on ten reviews, so it could still move up or down.  We shall see.

Next weekend I will be at a college graduation for the daughter of a friend of ours, so the week twenty round up might be delayed or dispensed with altogether.

Week twenty-one though… I will be all in on that as my best hope, Forza Horizon 6, launches.

Related:

• TAGN Fantasy Critic League
• TAGN Discord Server
• Fantasy Critic Site
• Fantasy Critic How to Play
• Fantasy Critic FAQ
• Open Critic Review Site

I may have made my final road trip to Portland.  At the end of last month it slipped into the distance in my rear view mirror, likely to never be viewed again.

Not because there is anything wrong with Portland.  It is an interesting city that reminds me a bit of pre-gentrification San Francisco back when I was a young adult.  It is more a matter of not having a reason to go there any more.

This last drive marked the end of our daughter’s time living in Portland.  She went up there for university in the autumn of 2020, in the midst of Covid, graduated in the spring of 2024, and spent a further two years living and working up there.

However, now she has been accepted to grad school down in San Diego.  So it was time for her to return to California.  That meant hauling stuff, which meant driving rather than flying.

The plan was simple.

Drive up in my wife’s SUV, spend a couple days seeing a few last sights, then I would drive my daughter’s car home to California, packed with as much stuff as would fit, followed in a few days by my wife and daughter.

The drive is the main thing.  The distance by highway between San Jose and Portland is close to 700 miles.  That makes for a 10-13 hour drive, depending on traffic.  That is too long to be a comfortable single day drive, but not long enough to make an overnight layover feel necessary.  This is not helped by the fact that the mid-point of the run, which is the city of Weed, lacks for amenities.

Not that I am disparaging Weed.  It is a fine little town and we stop there every time to use the Pilot/Flying J gas station, which among other things has one of the best maintained gas station bathrooms you’re likely to find along Interstate 5.  The town also offers a stunning view of Mount Shasta.

Mount Shasta Rising majestically over the Wendy’s and the Taco Bell

(That picture, taken from the McDonald’s parking lot, has the Valero gas station sign displaying gas for $5.89 a gallon, a number we’ll be nostalgic for soon enough.)

For one trip north we stayed in Medford.  But we were headed to Lincoln City, which involved some smaller state routes that we were not keen to navigate in the dark.  If you’re going to Portland you’re only a few hours away by the time you get to Medford, so why not just push through?

From Weed it is not too far to the Oregon border.

Oregon Welcomes You

And then you’re in for another four or five hours of driving on Interstate 5 until you reach Portland.

We made it up in about 12 hours, managing to hit rush hour traffic at both ends.  That is the way it goes sometimes.

In Portland on our free day we bummed around and did a few last things that we had never quite gotten to, like riding the Oregon Health and Science University sky tram, which connects their two campuses.  From the top of the tram you can see both Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood.

We also went by Nordic Northwest, the Nordic cultural center in Portland, to see a troll… specifically Ole Bolle, one of the Thomas Dambo trolls.

Ole Bolle at the Ole Bolle Hus

Along the way, pretty much by accident, we also went past the ICE detention facility in Portland.

Symbols of tyranny

This is where all those “battleground Portland” stories on Fox News originated and where the person in the frog suit became so well known.  It is basically a normal place and all the stuff you saw on the news happened in front of the driveway and most days it is just a building, boarded up by DHS to keep people from seeing in and not due to any violence, that you might not even notice while driving past.

As with the protests at the Federal Court House previously, it is not something that would disturb your daily life unless you happened to drive into a specific one block area.  At one point I had my father, who is irredeemably red pilled, call concerned about our daughter after being convinced by Fox that Portland was some kind of war zone.  I had to explain to him that what he was being fed was a gross exaggeration.  I am not sure he believed me, but he stopped asking about it.

Anyway, we spent a day tooling around, because I was set to drive back the next morning.

Later in the afternoon we loaded up the car, packing it as full as possible.  I woke up early the next day with a goal of getting on the road by 7am.

It was Saturday and it turned out to be the ideal time to get on the road.  There was very little traffic and those on the road with me were serious about getting places fast.  I had set the map on my for with Weed as the destination and headed southward.  I didn’t really need the phone to guide me, but it helps keep track of progress.

I made it to Weed in under five hours, then set the map for home and continued onward.

One thing about driving alone is that I am good with one stop and could just queue up and audio book to keep me mildly entertained.  I ended up at home a little before 5pm.

Then, a couple of days later, it was my wife and daughter’s turn.  I had left early so I did not have to deal with the inevitable problem of all the stuff left over that needs to be disposed of.  They had to have a friend haul some last minute stuff off for donation.

They did not get on the road until after 10am and had a much slower time of it.  They also had some extra precious cargo along for the ride; our daughter’s cat.

Taking the trip to CA

They hit traffic, had to make a few rest stops, and ended up rolling in at home close to midnight after about 13 hours on the road.

Now we have everything unpacked and are sorting things out to find what is going on to San Diego and grad school and what stays behind.

On the stay behind list is the cat, because there are no pets allowed in grad housing.

It is Friday and time to roll out some tidbits that have collected in my ever increasing supply of Notepad++ tabs.

• Conan Exiles… Now Enhanced!
  • Funcom – Conan Exiles Enters a New Era as Massive FREE Unreal Engine 5 Upgrade Goes Live!
  • Massively OP – Conan Exiles Enhanced is officially live for Steam gamers today
  • Massively OP – Funcom won’t rule out Conan Exiles Enhanced for console

We played Conan Exiles a while back and found it to be a pretty good game, with decent mechanics.  If you and your friends wanted to explore the world created by Robert E. Howard on a private server, or brave the public PvP servers, this was a pretty good option.  There are some awkward bits that come with the territory, but by the time we came the game in 2024, six years after it launched it was a solid title and still getting updates.

Still, Funcom went off to conquer the Dune universe, so one might expect Conan Exiles to linger.

But no, this week the game got a huge graphical update as it was migrated to Unreal Engine 5!

Conan Exiles Enhanced

Now, this might be to simplify support at Funcom, where Dune Awakening was shipped on UE5, but it is still a pretty big commitment to what is now an eight year old title.  It also feels likely to keep Conan Exiles viable and in the spotlight for a while longer.

• Palia Gets Mounts
  • Palia – The Royal Highlands Expansion Launches May 12

On Tuesday Singularity 6 will be launching their next big update for Palia, The Royal Highlands expansion.  This will include:

• Explore the Royal Highlands
• Uncover the secrets of the mysterious Amber Echo
• Gather new minerals, fish, insects, creatures, and more
• Meet (handsome) new Villager Eshelon
• Saddle up! Horses have arrived
• Rear and raise your dream Horse on your Ranch
• Level-up your Home Plot (literally) with the Ancient Human Home Line
• Bring home the delightful Aristocrat’s Decor with rococo flair
• Join the club when you take the reins on the new Lunar Path: Path of the Pony
• Get creative with Clothing Dye and Tint upgrades

Mounts are always a big deal, and being being able to breed and raise horses… feels like a winner.

• Path of Exile 2 – Return of the Ancients
  • GGG – Return of the Ancients Update
  • Tales of the Aggronaut – Ancients League Is Gonna Be Wild
  • Massively OP – Path of Exile 2’s May 29 Return of the Ancients update emphasizes endgame enhancements

Honestly, I have no insight into Path of Exile 2, it is still in paid early access and all, but Belghast seemed so up on the update that I included this just to link to his post.  So go read that.

• Monsters & Memories Early Access Coming October 1st
  • NWC – Monsters & Memories Site
  • NWC – Early Access Update
  • NWC – Monsters & Memories Early Access FAQ
  • NWC – Class Design Update
  • Massively OP – Monsters & Memories promises to make classes with ‘distinct identity’ that are ‘genuinely fun to play’

I did a “vibe check” on M&M a bit back when they had an open test weekend and I can confirm that if you want something that feels like old school EQ and you’re not up for the take that Project: Gorgon has, this might be the place for you.

It isn’t for me, but I’ve already been there and done that back in the day.

M&M had previously had June as a target for early access, but that got pushed out to allow more time to work on the game.  This week they sent me an update indicating that October 1, 2026 is the new early access target.

In addition, they put out a whole class design update post, for those keen to see the vision for the game.

• Project: Gorgon and NO Server Merges
  • Massively OP- Project Gorgon teases housing and apartments, says it’s not considering servers merge

On the PG Discord there was a somewhat long post about what people are working on, hiring a few new people, and the next tasks to hand, which includes apartments in Statehelm.

While I like Discord when it comes to alerting me when there is game news, I am not a fan of it as the sole repository of said news.  The Internet Archive can’t back that stuff up.  So, to further the efforts of archiving I am going to quote the whole update about server merged.

I also wanted to answer the question “why don’t we combine servers?” It’s true that server populations dropped a little bit more than we expected post-launch… but just a little bit. All populations are at a playable level. (The beta server was at a lower level for a decade.)

One of the things we learned immediately after launch is that an active population of more than about 500 feels TOO busy, with constant competition and frustration. (That’s something I want to work on over time — I’d like to make a pop of 500-600 feel more comfortable. But we’re not there yet.) So if we merged servers and then had even a modest population uptick, we’d end up having to open new servers again. It’s just way too premature to do that.

Also, we don’t actually have the technology to combine servers. (I may have buried the lede there.) My estimate is that it would take me about two months to implement the intricate database merging system, which would postpone Statehelm stuff.

So we aren’t even considering merging servers right now. Instead, we’ve allocated money for advertising, and we’re figuring out how to spend it. (We already had some things planned, but have some new ideas too.)

We also need to understand better why the populations dropped off more than predicted. We have some ideas but we’ll be gathering your feedback on this also.

It feels like you shouldn’t do something you cannot undo, like adding servers without a plan to merge them, but that might just be me feeling the many times in my career when we went down paths of no return.

Anyway, it isn’t pressing as the servers were over full before, so now they might be okay.

• Hollowed Oath – Give me $100K
  • God Mode Games – Hollowed Oath Site
  • God Mode Games – Hollowed Oath AI Use Statement
  • Kickstarter – Hollowed Oath
  • Massively OP – Former EverQuest emu devs have begun a Kickstarter for their new MMORPG, Hollowed Oath
  • Massively OP –

Technically nobody is playing this yet, but that still means I am not currently playing it!

Also, shouldn’t that be “Hallowed Oath?”  Wouldn’t a “hollowed” be an oath that is like one of those chocolate Easter bunnies, a thin shell with nothing but air inside?  Am I the only one around here with access to a dictionary?  Or is the suggestion that their oath is literally empty, a shell lacking any real substance?  Could be.

Anyway, coming off their all too predictable loss in court, the team that brought you The Heroes Journey has reformed as God Mode Games to try and recreate their success without… you know… stealing somebody’s IP and art assets and launcher and code, all while riding on the success and reputation of the victim.  So a new game will be forged!

It turns out this all costs money.  Who knew?

So now there is a Kickstarter up for Hollowed Oath to help fund the effort.  And we all know that MMO are famously successful and totally worth investing in and nobody ever regrets throwing money at them.

The campaign is moving along, and looks to have made enough in the first 24 hours to not put them into the danger zone for Wilhelm’s Rules of Kickstarters, which is if you don’t get to the 25% mark in that first day, you probably aren’t going to make it.

That said, $100K isn’t that much money.  They do have stretch goals, and if you want PvP you’re going to have to help get them to $3.5 million.  Somehow I don’t think they’re going to out raise Lord British or Mark Jacobs.  I mean, even Brad McQuaid couldn’t get to $500K based on his name.

The company remains profitable, with strong reserves and the ability to keep investing in the long-term health of New Eden.

-Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO of Fenris Creations, A New Era post

Last week we heard from Pearl Abyss that they were selling CCP, the makers of EVE Online, back to its management team and that this was GOOD for Pearl Abyss as CCP had been a money losing proposition and a drag on their books.  They were willing to take haircut on the deal in the range of $100 million to be rid of this Icelandic boat anchor.

Yesterday CCP finally got out their own announcement in which Hilmar wrote what I quoted at the top of this post.  And it wasn’t just that the company was profitable, or could be profitable, but that it REMAINS profitable.

Fenris Creations presents: An alternate reality

So somebody here is lying.

I don’t know who, nor do I have any evidence one way or the other aside from Peal Abyss and their financial statements for the last eight years, but I would certainly be suspicious of the guy who sold the company to PA then bought it back for about half the price.

He is the guy in the hotdog suit in this framing, because we’re all trying to find the guy responsible for CCP being worth so much less just eight years later.

The popular internet meme…  I am sure I’ll never have reason to use this particular image again

I suspect that PA simply did not read the tiny text at the bottom of his bio page with the instructions on how to get their ISK doubled. [This is a Jita scammer reference for the uninitiated.]

Also I suspect that Hilmar is the one coloring outside the lines of the literal truth due to the fact that CCP, once acquired, failed to meet its financial performance goals, thus turning the PA offer of $425 million into something closer to $225 when the final accounting of the 2017 acquisition was complete.  That lines up with the history of CCP, which has a track record of having to downsize staff and sell off assets as they outspent their revenue.

I am even a bit dubious about the claim that CCP/FC is coming off of a $70 million year, given the buy back price is only $125 million.  In what world is a software company’s valuation only 1.8x earnings?  Is that a good price/earnings ratio?  Or is something is very wrong with this picture? Is some key information is being withheld?

But that is all conjecture, with my opinion based on a couple decades of watching CCP in action.  Time will tell.  But I wouldn’t put much faith in boilerplate statements like this:

This transition does not involve restructuring or layoffs. There are no planned changes to our organization. Our headquarters remain in Vatnsmýrin, Iceland, and our teams in Reykjavík, London, and Shanghai continue their work as before.

I could dig up a multitude of variations on this theme.  There is a similar message associated with nearly every acquisition, merger, or spin-off.  It is one of those lies that a CEO speaks without even crossing their fingers behind their back.  Unstated is the condition “until I figure out what is really going on here.”  These are platitudes to keep the best employees from bolting for the doors… though with the current state of the gaming industry, that hardly seems necessary.

And then there is the name.

Why the name change?  There is some vague association with that name being on the box when they shipped The Danger Game back in 1997.  But CCP Games, or Crowd Control Productions, both post date that and have been their handle for pretty much the entire century so far.  Are they sick of being confused with the Communist Party China?

There are aspects of the lore of Fenris/Fenrir that map to CCP’s game philosophy, but there is also an inability to escape one’s fate folded in there… and the inevitability of a Ragnarok scenario.  Is that a good thing?

I secretly suspect that the real motivation is so that we’ll maybe refer to him as FC_Hellmar, since the naming scheme for employees will now substitutes “FC” in place of “CCP” before their handles.

“FC,” for those who play the game is short for “fleet commander,” a position of some considerable respect that takes skill and knowledge to perform.  Hilmar, legendarily clueless about actually playing EVE Online, would be hard pressed to actually fill that role competently.

There is now a suggestion that we call fleet commanders Command Coordination Pilots so as to limit confusion on this matter.

And then there is the AI thing.

In the blog post for players Hilmar quietly tiptoes around Google DeepMind involvement with the company, which he describes as a “research partnership,” going to pains to say that they won’t be doing anything with the live game.

Like the statement about no layoffs or restructuring, this has no real meaning except in the moment and the company could change its mind on it five minutes later.  All such corporate statements are discarded the moment they become inconvenient, and CCP is no stranger to such moves.  Do I have to bring up skill injectors and statements made around those?  Probably, so here:

It’s very important to note here that this means all the skillpoints available to buy on the market in EVE will have originated on other characters where they were trained at the normal rate.  Player driven economies are key to EVE design and we want you to decide the value of traded skillpoints while we make sure there is one single mechanism that brings new skillpoints in to the system – training.

Now you can just buy skill points in the web store.  Another “we meant it in the moment” tale.

So when Hilmar says it won’t be done with the live game, that statement expires the moment he decides otherwise, and he only said it in the moment to avoid blowblack, which is also likely the reason he omitted the fact that Google DeepMind is taking an ownership stake in CCP… erm… Fenris Creations.

Google’s AI arm will own part of the company… so maybe Fenris Creations will not be as independent as Hilmar might suggest.  But I guess we know where he got at least some of the money.

Also, Google DeepMind’s CEO will be speaking at EVE Fanfest next week.  Does that sound like a situation where AI won’t eventually be wedged into the game where ever it can be made to fit?  Does Google throw that kind of money around just to get some oddball AI training data?  There are some dumb things going on in AI… but that is stretching the point a bit for me.

This feels more like Hilmar jumping on another tech bandwagon.  We’ve been through the VR phase, and EVE Frontier is still bound up in garbage blockchain tech, so why not dive into AI before the bubble bursts?

Who knows.  Maybe, as somebody suggested on Reddit, Google can find and de-tangle the POS code that was forever a reason why certain things couldn’t be done in EVE Online.

All of this is me editorializing based on the limited amount of information we have been given.

We’ll hear more next week for sure, though I suspect that the reality of the situation will remain obscured for some time to come.  They’ll boil the frog slowly, as they did with skill injectors, finding innocuous exceptions, special circumstances… and after a while, whatever they promised will give way to what they actually planned… whatever that ends up being.

More to follow on this I am sure.  But I had to mark the moment.  We’ll see how this post looks in a year.  In the mean time I am sticking with CCP as the category.

Related to this announcement:

• CCP – A New Era Announcement
• CCP – Name Change Press Release with Google Ownership Stake Statement
• Reddit Thread – Studio Behind EVE Online Goes Independent, Rebrands as Fenris Creations
• TNG – CCP Games Rebrands To Fenris Creations
• TNG – Pearl Abyss Stock Down 13% Since The Divestment Of CCP Games/Fenris Creations
• Massively OP – EVE Online’s CCP Games rebrands as Fenris Creations, partners with Google DeepMind
• Ars Technica – Google DeepMind partners with EVE Online for AI model testing
• Game Developer – CCP Games turns independent and rebrands as Fenris Creations
• WCCF Tech – EVE Online’s Studio Walks Away From Pearl Abyss After Record $70M Year

Related to the previous Pearl Abyss announcement:

• Inven Global – Pearl Abyss Sells ‘EVE Online’ Developer CCP Games to Secure Financial Health
• Massively OP – Pearl Abyss has finally sold EVE Online studio CCP Games… to CCP Games’ own management
• WCCF Tech – Pearl Abyss Dumps EVE Online Back to CCP’s CEO for $120M After Paying $225M Just Seven Years Ago
• MMORPG.com – Pearl Abyss Has Sold CCP Games Back To The Studio’s Leadership Team For $120M USD
• TAGN – Pearl Abyss Sheds CCP as Hilmar Buys the Company Back for $120 Million
• TNG – Pearl Abyss Sells CCP Games To CCP’s Management Group
• TNG – CCP Games Sold To Pearl Abyss (Sep 2018)
• TNG – Pearl Abyss’ Final Purchase Price For CCP Games: $225 Million (Feb 2021)