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Project Nova Is Dead.

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The Pearl Abyss Q4 investors call brought out a little tidbit of information I wasn't expecting. I received a tweet informing me of news about Project Nova.
.@noizygamer may want to keep an ear on that Pearl Abyss earnings call today. We have some Project Nova developments. https://t.co/CjNwaMn6VTpic.twitter.com/ZrjUZlU2oz — Neckbeard Nixon💬 (@JadekMenaheim) February 13, 2020Yes, the screen grab shows CCP Rattati of Project Nova fame letting everyone know about the future of Project Nova. Basically, that the concept of an FPS game set in a sci-fi universe had morphed into a third person shooter/MMO. I've transcribed the words from the image, which I believe are snippets from a Discord conversation, below.

Greetings Dear Friends,

I want to tell you some news before they break, later today probably. We are evolving the scope of Nova beyond our previous plans for early access, and the development will continue in our London studio. I am personally optimistic about this, but also wis…
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Patch 5.2, Finishing AAR Gathering Quests, And The Fashion Report

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Tomorrow Square Enix introduces patch 5.2, Echoes of a Fallen Star, for Final Fantasy XIV. I like the way that SE lays out the patch notes, with hyper-links to the various sections. The patch notes also have labels indicating whether the changes apply to the base game, Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, or some combination thereof. While I bought all the expansions, I'm still in the base game's content and will be for some time to come. I decided to list my top 5 changes.


Free Company rank cap increased. The maximum rank for free companies has been increased from 8 to 30. The new FC entitlements are:

Rank 10 - Increases the number of company chest compartments to four.
Rank 12 - Increases the maximum number of inactive company actions.
Rank 15 - Increases the number of company chest compartments to five.
Rank 18 - Increases the maximum number of inactive company actions.
Rank 20 - Increases the maximum number of inactive company actions.

Increasing the number of ranks may help …
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More about Baccarat: Not my favourite game, but big-money gamblers worldwide lose more at it than against any other casino option, and I decided 2020 was the year to pay closer attention.

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In the most recent 2020 post (the one I thought would probably be my last) I detoured into baccarat and reiterated my long held belief that anyone who thinks betting Banker is the best policy "because it wins more often" is either deluded or daft.

But then I remembered that however much proof to the contrary I produce, a lot of readers of this blog assume I'm both deluded and daft when I insist that progressive betting my way will consistently beat most casino house games.

Either that or...I'm a conman peddling an impossible dream, an idiot who has made a whole series of fatal mistakes in my arithmetic for the past 40 years, and I'm too stupid or stubborn to admit it, even to myself.

I discovered long ago that most of the insults hurled my way originate with people whose agenda is diametrically opposite to mine.

They want to preserve the myth that negative expectation can't be beaten in the long run, but good-time gamblers can have lots of fun trying before they …
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Pearl Abyss Q4 2019 Investors Call

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On Thursday morning Seoul time, Pearl Abyss held an investor call to discuss the financial results for the fourth quarter of 2019. But first the presentation went over the entire year.

Operating revenue for 2019 was 33% more than in 2018. Throughout 2019, one of Pearl Abyss' main goals was to diversify its revenue sources. PA moved into the console market in 2019 with launches of Black Desert Online onto the Xbox One and Playstation 4. In Q4 2019, console sales made up 9% of the company's revenue.

Pearl Abyss also sought to make itself a company with a global reach. BDO launched on the Xbox One in North America and Europe in March and the PS4 in August. Black Desert Mobile entered the Japanese market in February and went global in December. November also saw EVE Online expand into Korea with the launch of a Korean language client. The share of revenue from outside Korea increased from 55% in Q4 2018 to 74% in Q4 2019.

The list of expansions and other ways of improving user engage…
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EVE Online's February 2020 Patch, Guardian's Gala, And Mining Changes

The patch notes for the February 2020 release came out with the patch on Tuesday. Most of the changes won't affect my play, and I'll note the few occasions they do. While CCP didn't give much lead time for some of the changes,  the developers did publish a dev blog on Friday with information on two of the bigger features, wormhole connection changes and the Guardians' Gala.

The biggest change, teased in the dev blog, was an increase in the connections between wormholes. The patch notes spelled out the change in more details.
Wandering wormhole connections (excluding to Thera and Shattered) have had their presence increasedWandering C5 and C6 connections to null sec have had their presence increasedNew wandering connections between C4, C5 and C6 wormhole systems have been introducedWormholes are also receiving some love during the Guardians' Gals event.
GUARDIAN'S GALA
This year, the Guardian's Gala - the annual get together for the Angel Cartel and Serpentis pi…
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The End Of A Quest Line And I'm A Fashion Leader

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I started playing Final Fantasy XIV back in July, but never really had something I could write about until now. Over the past few days I did a couple of things I want to record on the blog. I managed to complete the botanist's quest line for the basic game (up to level 50) and I scored 100 on the fashion report.

I love good crafting systems. I lost myself in EverQuest 2, getting the old Sony Station Pass just so I could have more crafting characters. Unlike the original EQ2 crafting system that required cooperation between crafters, FFXIV characters can have all crafting skills on one character. I'm at the point where when I create a high quality item that required three crafting skills, I do a little happy dance in the game. Yes, I find crafting very satisfying.

Crafting isn't just about the complexity of the items and the mini-game used during item creation. Each of the eight crafting classes and three gathering classes has a story line with a quest every five levels up to…
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Back In Space

When I got home yesterday, I made the perfunctory attempt to log into EVE Online. I noticed the launcher download nine files. Hmmm. Then, wonders of wonders, I got to the login page. I entered my credentials and the launcher presented the character select screen with no delays. Selecting my character, I watched as bulk data downloaded and I was sitting in a station in Rens. Like normal.

I did have one small issue. I did not connect cleanly to the chat servers and received a pop-up box asking if I'd like to retry. I clicked yes. All my chat channels appeared.

Now, I'd been fooled before by this type of behavior in the wake of the DDoS attacks. The real test was hitting the markets with a multi-buy order, as I originally flew to Rens to buy a Heron. Sure enough, the multi-buy feature worked as intended, as fast as intended.

I had flushed the DNS cache on my computer before attempting to log into EVE. Was that the trick to logging in? I decided to attempt to log in on my second comp…
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