While doing my weekly EVE Blog roundup, I was reading through a blog post by Neville Smit that mentioned he would be on EVE Radio. In that same post, Neville mentioned that DJ Wiggles, the host of the EVE Radio show, has predicted EVE's end in three years.
I do not agree with this prediction.
Predictions are notoriously difficult to make. They're based on the knowledge, and to a certain extent, the experience, possessed by the person making the prediction. In the post written by DJ Wiggles, he points to a few bits of information to support his case.
First, he points to CCP's poor communication with the community as an indicator of trouble. Specifically, he talks about how CCP is vague on when certain features will be delivered, if they're delivered at all. He also mentions the problems around how CCP addressed the SOMERBlink controversy. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain how this translates into solvency issues for the company. And really, these issues are normal for any company. Some of the most successful gaming companies in the world (Blizzard and Valve) have a release date of "when it's done". And most gaming companies do not communicate their intentions nearly as well as CCP does with their regular and detailed Dev Blogs. As for dealing with controversies, I think CCP has shown that while they make mistakes, and big ones, they're usually pretty good at adapting. So to me, this is not an indication of collapse.
Next, DJ Wiggles talks about people leaving the company. This is a more serious problem. When several senior employees start leaving the company, management needs to pay attention, because it could indicate internal problems. But it's not necessarily the case. Good people are always in demand, and in a competitive environment, it could simply mean they got better offers. In the case of the employees that left CCP, this is a very real possibility, since many of them left for Riot Games, the maker of League of Legends, which is currently one of the hottest games on the market.
And finally, DJ Wiggles talks about employee sentiment as reported on GlassDoor. He also uses this to support that the employees who did leave CCP did so because of CCP's poor results on the company ranking site. Again, I'm not convinced that poor reviews on GlassDoor are indicators of anything. For example, Blackberry has a 3.5/5 rating on GlassDoor, and their CEO has an approval rating of 77%, and their bleeding money. Anheuser-Busch on the other hand, has terrible ratings, and they're still making tons of cash and they're nowhere near collapse.
But none of these are really credible indicators of the health of a company. What really matters are a company's finances. And fortunately, CCP makes all of that available.
The good news is that, except for 2013, CCP has been a consistently profitable company. For 2013, CCP reported $21mm loss on revenues of $74mm. This was due to a one time cost of getting rid of assets from their books, as accounting rules require companies to derecognise assets that aren't likely to be profitable in the future. The financial report doesn't go into details, but many suspect the assets in question are everything related to World of Darkness, the game whose development CCP shutdown last year. If you remove that expense, 2013 likely would have been CCP's most profitable. As well, revenue has been growing consistently, year over year since 2008.
I really don't see any indications of imminent demise, or even a 3 year demise. Of course, things can change unexpectedly fast, especially in the gaming market. But based on current information, I don't see any reason why EVE would be gone in 3 years' time.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Return to EVE Blogging
A few days ago, Neville Smit posted that he was depressed, sad and nervous. Like many EVE players, he enjoys following a few of the many EVE bloggers out there. Recently, he went through his bookmarked blog list to catch up on posts, but he realized that many of his favorite bloggers had suspended their blogs, in many cases, these blogs were gone as writers/players left the game. To Neville, this could be an indication of a high turnover rate in the broader player base, and that left him with a less than rosy view of EVE's future.
Since I'm all about making people happy, I thought I'd try to cheer Neville up by getting back into blogging about EVE.
Ok, so that's not my only reason for restarting this blog. Back in 2011, when I wrote my first post, I outlined my goals for the blog:
I don't think those goals have changed. In the process of writing this post, I was reading through my older blog posts, and I did read through posts that talked about events I went through, such as the destruction of my hauler that contained over 1 billion ISK of cargo, and the changes I implemented to prevent such a loss from happening again. As well, I do want to be part of the EVE community, and I feel being a more active participant is great way of doing so.
But more importantly, I hope that this blog will also help to encourage others to play EVE, whether it's EVE veterans that need to be inspired out of a rut, or it's non-EVE players that need a bit of a nudge to give EVE a try. This is what EVE blogs have done for me, and I'm hoping my blog will do the same for others.
Since I'm all about making people happy, I thought I'd try to cheer Neville up by getting back into blogging about EVE.
Ok, so that's not my only reason for restarting this blog. Back in 2011, when I wrote my first post, I outlined my goals for the blog:
"This blog will be my journal. I'm hoping that by writing my journey down, I'll be able to learn by tracking successes and failures, analyzing that information, and coming up with plans for improvement. But more importantly, I'm hoping this blog will help me engage the community, so that I can learn from other capsuleers."
I don't think those goals have changed. In the process of writing this post, I was reading through my older blog posts, and I did read through posts that talked about events I went through, such as the destruction of my hauler that contained over 1 billion ISK of cargo, and the changes I implemented to prevent such a loss from happening again. As well, I do want to be part of the EVE community, and I feel being a more active participant is great way of doing so.
But more importantly, I hope that this blog will also help to encourage others to play EVE, whether it's EVE veterans that need to be inspired out of a rut, or it's non-EVE players that need a bit of a nudge to give EVE a try. This is what EVE blogs have done for me, and I'm hoping my blog will do the same for others.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Overdue Business Update
While I have been playing EVE, I haven't been blogging much about it. Most of my time has been spent working on faction standings so that I can put a POS up in high-sec. It's pretty grindy and boring, so I didn't bother writing up about it. I am getting close to my goal, however, so hopefully I'll have a more interesting information to share shortly.
I haven't been spending much time trading either. I had more than enough ISK to fund the purchase of that POS and its fuel for a good while, so there wasn't much point in spending any time trading.
Still, here's where things currently stand:
Assets
------
Cash 3,141,685,190.88 ISK
Sell Orders 362,333,847.00 ISK
Escrow 0.00 ISK
Contracts 0.00 ISK
--------------------
Total Current Assets 3,504,019,037.88 ISK
Some goods take a bit longer to sell, since they're high value items. But they do sell eventually, and I got them at a very low price, so even if they significantly drop in value, I still make a profit. And now I have plenty of ISK in cash. It's not working hard, granted, but it's still good money. I should also point out that I spent close to 200,000,000 ISK on ships and modules for Nate, mostly destroyers and cruisers, plus T2 modules to fit them. One of the nice things about RvB is that it's cheap.
I haven't been spending much time trading either. I had more than enough ISK to fund the purchase of that POS and its fuel for a good while, so there wasn't much point in spending any time trading.
Still, here's where things currently stand:
Assets
------
Cash 3,141,685,190.88 ISK
Sell Orders 362,333,847.00 ISK
Escrow 0.00 ISK
Contracts 0.00 ISK
--------------------
Total Current Assets 3,504,019,037.88 ISK
Some goods take a bit longer to sell, since they're high value items. But they do sell eventually, and I got them at a very low price, so even if they significantly drop in value, I still make a profit. And now I have plenty of ISK in cash. It's not working hard, granted, but it's still good money. I should also point out that I spent close to 200,000,000 ISK on ships and modules for Nate, mostly destroyers and cruisers, plus T2 modules to fit them. One of the nice things about RvB is that it's cheap.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Exequror Cargo Frigate
Back in early July, I posted my massive common sense fail that resulted in the loss of an Iteron V loaded with about 1B in cargo. What was especially stupid about that loss was that the bulk of my cargo hold was empty. The Iteron V cargo hold is massive, especially when the ship is fitted with expanded cargo holds and cargo optimization rigs. I had far more space that I needed for the cargo I was hauling.
Following that loss, I took a long look at my hauling activities. The first thing I looked at was whether or not I could have survived that attack if I had been fitted differently. The answer is yes. If I had just about any small improvement to my shield defences (Adaptive Invulnerability Field IIs, Shield Rigs, etc), I could have survived the first salvo. That's because an alpha Tornado's volley hits for about 12.5k dps, while an Iteron has about 15k ehp. The Tornado would not likely have fired again because it would have been destroyed by Concord. Of course, the Tornado could have had another ship with it. Given that I'd be deep in structure from that first hit, I could have been killed by a much smaller ship (cruiser maybe?).
The second thing I looked at was the required cargo capacity for my hauling activities. Do I really need 38k+ m3 of cargo space? The answer is no. The items I've been trading are small, but valuable, which means that even with 1B ISK worth of cargo, I don't need nearly the amount of cargo space I have in an Iteron V.
So I started looking at other ships. My thinking was to look at shield cruisers or battle cruisers. Shield-tanked ships rely on their mid slots for shield related modules, so that would leave my low slots free for cargo extenders. Depending on how much tank and cargo I have after fitting these modules, I could install shield or cargo rigs to make up whatever I was missing.
I fired up PyFa (a Python version of EFT, which in my opinion, is a better fitting tool that EFT), and started looking at ships. Bingo! The Gallente Exequror.
The Exequror is a heavy cargo cruiser. It's base cargo capacity is 600m3, but it's increased by 10% for each level of the pilot's Gallente Cruiser skill, for a total of 900m3 at level 5. With cargo extenders, its capacity can reach 1700m3, far more than I'll need for my regular trading. If I don't need that much capacity, I can increase it's defensive capabilities by fitting either Nanofiber Internal Structures (NIS) for shorter alignment time (which is always helpful for faster navigation), or even warp stabilizers if I ever decided to head for low/null sec.
This leaves my rigs and mid slots free for shield modules. With the usual loadout of shield extender modules and rigs, and adaptive invulnerability fields, this ship has an effective HP level of just over 30k.
Initially, I had put Dual 150mm railguns in the high slots. However, I tried to kill a few rats for a mission I was running, and I couldn't do enough damage to break their tank. This is not a combat ship. I switched to my Caracal to finish that mission, but it got me thinking if I couldn't put something more useful than guns in the high slots. Since this ship was designed to carry cargo and survive attacks, I decided to try for more defensive modules in the highs: cloaking device and a medium energy neutralizer.
Finally, I added a flight of Vespa EC-600 ECM drones. These would be helpful in breaking the lock any ship may have on me.
It's a very tight fit, but it works. I've been flying this fit for about two months now, and I haven't had any issues with cargo capacity, and I only occasionally have to fit a single cargo expander. Most of the time I fly with NIS installed for quicker movement around Empire space.
It's not the sexiest of ships, but it does its job well.
[Exequror, Agility fit]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Improved Cloaking Device II
Medium Energy Neutralizer I
Modal Electron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge M
Modal Electron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge M
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Vespa EC-600 x4
Following that loss, I took a long look at my hauling activities. The first thing I looked at was whether or not I could have survived that attack if I had been fitted differently. The answer is yes. If I had just about any small improvement to my shield defences (Adaptive Invulnerability Field IIs, Shield Rigs, etc), I could have survived the first salvo. That's because an alpha Tornado's volley hits for about 12.5k dps, while an Iteron has about 15k ehp. The Tornado would not likely have fired again because it would have been destroyed by Concord. Of course, the Tornado could have had another ship with it. Given that I'd be deep in structure from that first hit, I could have been killed by a much smaller ship (cruiser maybe?).
The second thing I looked at was the required cargo capacity for my hauling activities. Do I really need 38k+ m3 of cargo space? The answer is no. The items I've been trading are small, but valuable, which means that even with 1B ISK worth of cargo, I don't need nearly the amount of cargo space I have in an Iteron V.
So I started looking at other ships. My thinking was to look at shield cruisers or battle cruisers. Shield-tanked ships rely on their mid slots for shield related modules, so that would leave my low slots free for cargo extenders. Depending on how much tank and cargo I have after fitting these modules, I could install shield or cargo rigs to make up whatever I was missing.
I fired up PyFa (a Python version of EFT, which in my opinion, is a better fitting tool that EFT), and started looking at ships. Bingo! The Gallente Exequror.
The Exequror is a heavy cargo cruiser. It's base cargo capacity is 600m3, but it's increased by 10% for each level of the pilot's Gallente Cruiser skill, for a total of 900m3 at level 5. With cargo extenders, its capacity can reach 1700m3, far more than I'll need for my regular trading. If I don't need that much capacity, I can increase it's defensive capabilities by fitting either Nanofiber Internal Structures (NIS) for shorter alignment time (which is always helpful for faster navigation), or even warp stabilizers if I ever decided to head for low/null sec.
This leaves my rigs and mid slots free for shield modules. With the usual loadout of shield extender modules and rigs, and adaptive invulnerability fields, this ship has an effective HP level of just over 30k.
Initially, I had put Dual 150mm railguns in the high slots. However, I tried to kill a few rats for a mission I was running, and I couldn't do enough damage to break their tank. This is not a combat ship. I switched to my Caracal to finish that mission, but it got me thinking if I couldn't put something more useful than guns in the high slots. Since this ship was designed to carry cargo and survive attacks, I decided to try for more defensive modules in the highs: cloaking device and a medium energy neutralizer.
Finally, I added a flight of Vespa EC-600 ECM drones. These would be helpful in breaking the lock any ship may have on me.
It's a very tight fit, but it works. I've been flying this fit for about two months now, and I haven't had any issues with cargo capacity, and I only occasionally have to fit a single cargo expander. Most of the time I fly with NIS installed for quicker movement around Empire space.
It's not the sexiest of ships, but it does its job well.
[Exequror, Agility fit]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Improved Cloaking Device II
Medium Energy Neutralizer I
Modal Electron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge M
Modal Electron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge M
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Vespa EC-600 x4
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
*Facepalm*
I decided to do a bit of PVP tonight, just to do something different. So I fleeted up with my RvB corp mates, and went out hunting. I didn't play too long, and I didn't get into too many fights, but I did manage to get a point on a target, so that's an additional kill on the kill board for me.
After I logged off, I went to take a look at the kill board. I usually do so to review kills/losses for the night, to get get some idea as to what people are flying, so that I can tweak my own fittings.
I saw that our kill was worth 34M ISK. It was a T1 cruiser equipped with T2 modules and ammo. Not bad. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how much my own ships are worth. So I picked the last loss I suffered:
http://rvbeve.com/blue/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=207998
I noticed that my ship was worth 39M ISK. What? How can a T1 frigate with only just a few T2 modules be worth more than a cruiser? It must be all those skill books and implants I had the cargo hold.
Wait, what?
It turns out that I had somehow put the gift package that CCP gave all players in my cargo hold, and went off fighting with that in my ship. I always wondered what kind of an idiot did things like that. Well, now I know. Live and learn, I guess.
After I logged off, I went to take a look at the kill board. I usually do so to review kills/losses for the night, to get get some idea as to what people are flying, so that I can tweak my own fittings.
I saw that our kill was worth 34M ISK. It was a T1 cruiser equipped with T2 modules and ammo. Not bad. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how much my own ships are worth. So I picked the last loss I suffered:
http://rvbeve.com/blue/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=207998
I noticed that my ship was worth 39M ISK. What? How can a T1 frigate with only just a few T2 modules be worth more than a cruiser? It must be all those skill books and implants I had the cargo hold.
Wait, what?
It turns out that I had somehow put the gift package that CCP gave all players in my cargo hold, and went off fighting with that in my ship. I always wondered what kind of an idiot did things like that. Well, now I know. Live and learn, I guess.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Back in Business
It's been two months since my last post. When my accounts were due for renewal in early July, I decided to let them run out, since I knew I would be going on vacation for a few weeks in early August. When I got back, I was busy with a few things, so I didn't re-subscribe right away.
Now that the summer distractions have come and gone, it's time to start making ISK again.
Here's what the balance sheet looks like as of today:
Assets
------
Cash 1,908,408,192.86 ISK
Sell Orders 1,019,663,960.00 ISK
Escrow 447,600,000.00 ISK
Contracts 0.00 ISK
--------------------
Total Current Assets 3,375,672,152.86 ISK
As you can see, my balance is a bit lower than what I reported in my last post by about 640M ISK. Before I left on vacation, I got into several price wars for items I was selling. When all was said and done, my balance sheet was down to 3B ISK or so. That's where it stood when I returned. I used 1B ISK to re-activate two of my accounts, and I spent roughly 50M buying ships, modules and the skill books required to use those items for my trading fleet, reducing my starting ISK balance to about 2B or so. So really, I'm up just shy of 1.4B this past week.
For most people, 1.4B a week is pretty good, because it essentially means that for every month played, enough ISK is earned to keep two accounts running for 4 months, with enough ISK left over to buy some items and continue investing in growth.
But it's not good enough for me.
When I returned from vacation, I was planning on doing some PVP. After all, I had 3B ISK in cash, more than enough to run an account for several months, and have enough ISK to buy what I would need to PVP. But instead, I went immediately back to trading and earning ISK.
I just have to face the facts: I'm addicted to making ISK.
I haven't decide what ISK-making avenues I'm going to pursue next. It's definitely going to be as an industrialist (as opposed to grinding missions or through piracy). But I'm not sure of the specifics: manufacturing? Trading? Research? Time will tell.
Now that the summer distractions have come and gone, it's time to start making ISK again.
Here's what the balance sheet looks like as of today:
Assets
------
Cash 1,908,408,192.86 ISK
Sell Orders 1,019,663,960.00 ISK
Escrow 447,600,000.00 ISK
Contracts 0.00 ISK
--------------------
Total Current Assets 3,375,672,152.86 ISK
As you can see, my balance is a bit lower than what I reported in my last post by about 640M ISK. Before I left on vacation, I got into several price wars for items I was selling. When all was said and done, my balance sheet was down to 3B ISK or so. That's where it stood when I returned. I used 1B ISK to re-activate two of my accounts, and I spent roughly 50M buying ships, modules and the skill books required to use those items for my trading fleet, reducing my starting ISK balance to about 2B or so. So really, I'm up just shy of 1.4B this past week.
For most people, 1.4B a week is pretty good, because it essentially means that for every month played, enough ISK is earned to keep two accounts running for 4 months, with enough ISK left over to buy some items and continue investing in growth.
But it's not good enough for me.
When I returned from vacation, I was planning on doing some PVP. After all, I had 3B ISK in cash, more than enough to run an account for several months, and have enough ISK to buy what I would need to PVP. But instead, I went immediately back to trading and earning ISK.
I just have to face the facts: I'm addicted to making ISK.
I haven't decide what ISK-making avenues I'm going to pursue next. It's definitely going to be as an industrialist (as opposed to grinding missions or through piracy). But I'm not sure of the specifics: manufacturing? Trading? Research? Time will tell.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Business Update
Assets
------
Cash 1,897,733,360.84 ISK
Sell Orders 2,116,883,677.00 ISK
Escrow 0.00 ISK
Contracts 0.00 ISK
-----------------
Total Current Assets 4,014,617,037.84 ISK
I think I'm getting the hang of this trading thing.
------
Cash 1,897,733,360.84 ISK
Sell Orders 2,116,883,677.00 ISK
Escrow 0.00 ISK
Contracts 0.00 ISK
-----------------
Total Current Assets 4,014,617,037.84 ISK
Despite my massive, idiotic mistake two days ago, business is still quite good. I've managed to make up for losing all that ISK, and then some, in just two days. I should have take note of my TCA after the loss of the hauler, but I believe it was around the 2.6B mark. That means I made 1.4B or so in two days of trading.
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