Bad rep for Entropia Universe :(

[fnalig]

just a short statement from me.
nr. 2 was misunderstood from most of the players afaik. i think it was mentioned that the average player earns 20k peds in real life and not in the game.

and nr.3 is not so dramatic. think of hl2 some years ago or the duke and of course the egg!

Not missunderstood at all. I have the interwiew on video. Where Mr Wellter claims. " The average players makes about 20 K peds monthly which he easily can withdraw within a second with our cashcard thats what make us UNIQUE! Thats just about as good translation i can do 4 u. Theres NO way 2 missunderstand such direct comment from him.
It was just a VERY ugly way 2 try 2 attract new players from him. At least thats the way i see it.

 

[Dark Cat]

People that loose vast amounts of money in Entropia have only themselves to blame. There was no reason to put that in there in the first place other then there own greed to try to advance faster.
I've not deposited in almost a year now, and I'm getting on just fine.
Sure I can't hunt the big things that I used too, but I'm not that greedy anyway, and my skill increase is a constant. - Albeit slower than a heavy depositor. But that doesn't get to my ego...I don't feel inadequate.

 

[Ulv]

well they didn't say 7 million active players... they said 7 million players online at all times

Just imagine the lag in PA when they all are there.. Unless they split up the 'universes' I have a hard time seeing that happen..

 

[arielos]

"There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary." ---

Brendan Behan
Irish author & dramatist (1923 - 1964)



Dex

+rep

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. - Oscar Wilde

 

[Darkaner]

Not missunderstood at all. I have the interwiew on video. Where Mr Wellter claims. " The average players makes about 20 K peds monthly which he easily can withdraw within a second with our cashcard thats what make us UNIQUE! Thats just about as good translation i can do 4 u. Theres NO way 2 missunderstand such direct comment from him.
It was just a VERY ugly way 2 try 2 attract new players from him. At least thats the way i see it.

You didn't misunderstand, but you failed to translate. He said "vanlig", which is not the same as "average". A more correct translation would be "common".

An average is something you can calculate. "Vanlig" could be anything. It could be 5 people.

And all these words were filtered through a journalist.

 

[LostInEntropia]

MA needs bad publicity, simple as that, better than nothing at all, and it worked up till now with few and rich gamers. But with their attitude I fear their expectations for the future aren't much realistic. I still hope they wake up out of their dream before the bubble bursts.

 

[Naifas Anaconda]

Here's what i wrote in that thread at mmorpg:

Originally posted by OrionStar

Reasons why I don't like this game.



1. Horrible character movement and control. Slow paced, stressful controls, running feels like walking! Camera angle problems, camera sticks.

2. Confusing and non responsive UI interface. The UI for me anyone locks up doesn't respond or crashes.

3. Limited ONE avatar on a account. They should have made it like other MMOs where you can make more characters. Cause what I bassically did I didn't bother changing anything on my avatar I just wanted to see how the game was so I didn't customize the avatar while thinking I could just delete it and create a new one.

4. Account edited on the website... couldn't find where to do it or how to do it. I wanted to change my email close the account possibly make another account. Couldn't do it. So now I have my personal information on the companies website that is just sitting there!

5. The Entropia Universe website is not helpfull at all. Very limited... it's feels like they don't want you to or they don't care about you being able to change or have control of your account information. Contact Support for this that and everything!



Overall a bad an mentally painful experience I wouldn't recommend going through the trouble to even try this game. It's not worth it!


My answer:
I have to admit not everyone has the patience or brain for this game.
Concerning the controls, you can configure anything yourself, i.e. you can completely customize your keyboard...

I never crashed while doing this kind of shit, if you do, then perhaps it is your computer that sucks.

THe avatar moves slowly: as you progress in a certain skill, you will become faster. Afterall, you can't expect to be as fast as someone who plays for several years. Example: my avatar moves almost twice as fast as your fresh one for sure.

Account limitation: if you don't like your avatar, create another one and ask for a termination of the old one. Remember this is a game which deals with real money and therefore you must put in real info. If you didn't know so, because you are a missinformed noob like so many i see whining, you can change your avatar looks ingame, just talk with a player that does that for a living, ingame. The only thing you can't change that way is the gender.

To edit your account info, it's really a no-brainer: just access the "my acount" link on the main page...... Some ppl seem to have problems in lining the eyes with words... There is another link saying: "my support".

There is usefull info about the game in dozens of sites in the web.

To the guys who say the game is about sweating and it sucks: what did you expect of a RCE? You want your money easy and ready in your account just after a few hours of gameplay? LOLz, you make me laugh. As in real life, money is hard to make. The game is not about sweating: sweating was a way Mindark found to make possible to try out the game for free, without having to deposit.. ok, it's boring at first, but when u got enough cash that way, you can try doing a lot of stuff (playing at your level).

To those who say it is impossible to play the game today and it's a money sink.

I play since 2004, i never re-sold anything except for a couple of months in the beginning to get some extra cash to get started. I have invested through the years around 200$ (an average of 4$/month) and my avatar is worth over 5.000$ nowadays. I have never ever hit a big jackpot, except for a 800$ one last year. Oh, it's because I'm favoured in the eyes of MA? lol.. It's because i entered in 2004 and got hold of ubber items? LOL again.... I hold only mid-level gear and only started to shoot down stuff seriously since last year. I was a miner before and only hunted ocasionaly. Hmm... hard to believe then.. ok.. my GF started to play last year, invested 50$ and has an avatar worth over 500$. Another soc mate had 40$ in last year and has around 300$ too. Another one plays for over 3 years with monthly deposits of 10-20$ and a couple of months ago found something worth 6.000$. This is not a game exclusive to rich ppl, as you see.

Of course, if you don't know what you're doing, you'll lose a lot. I have friends that pump hundreds of $ each month and play like crazy junkies on cocain trip and suddenly, all is gone. Ya, i guess they had fun though, remember you will only lose what you earn or put ingame, so if you lose your shirt, you can only blame yourself.

The game has no monthly fees. Several players reach a certain level of skills/knowledge/gear at which point they are on the top of the food chain and will stop making deposits in order to play. I call those ubbers.

This game is only a casino if you want to play it like that. Huge risk will mean most of the time Huge Loss or sometimes Huge Return. If it goes bad, you can only blame yourself.

The developers of the game (and this is what most of the players don't get at all) only make money from part of your decay (every weapon or tool you use will decay a bit) and not your bad loots, so they will do the same bucks independently of how your run was.

Oh, the graphs don't impress you? Cryengine is on its way...

If you find the game expensive, you are probably doing something completely wrong. Again, don't be afraid to ask for info or help in anyway (except "give me free money, u f**krs!). Teaming with someone in a hunt or entering the right society will also be helpfull. Remember some mobs are too tough or expensive to take solo and you will have to team up to kill them.

In this game, you cannot expect to be Mr ubberness in a couple of months. If you think that, you are a real nutcase . Those guys that are today at the top had to play for over 5 years to get there and surely deposited more than i did.

Most of all: except for a couple of cases, don't expect you will able to pay the bills playing this game. Most probably, you will lose a few bucks with it. But remember you are the one who controls the credit card .

Finally, i just want to say this is a very hard game, so geared especially towards an adult crowd who likes challenges. Don't expect everything to be given to you easily and in a silver plate. This game is a real challenge for survival everyday . If you are imaginative, methodical and humble enough to learn, you can do well. Having a big fat wallet for the stuborn ones will help of course, but it is not crucial.

Naifas

 

[EarlVonKippler]

i feel this recent development of making entropia a daughter company is the best thing possible. i beleive marco will be a real drving force in making this game more of what we want to see. i will hold my judgement til the release and activation of the new worlds, but i think giving calypso room to grow as a micro company will be very great.

(dont fail us marco )

 

[Skaffen]

Project Evolution

Having read through this thread and agreeing with the majority of comments, I would like to ask - Isn't it the time to turn the negative energy into something far more constructive?

I am helping to try and generate support for the 'Player Planet Project'...

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...iverse/130903-making-partner-planet-team.html

It is early days but a few weeks ago I couldn't get the time of day.

With regard to MA's PR (wasn't just here to plug my 'book' ) - Offering a Platform to the current playerbase would IMO look like a master stroke on their behalf.

 

[Ozi]

I like what you wrote Naifas, no bullshit, just the way it is. EU will never suit everyone, however it helps if people have reasonable expectations when they enter.

I'd also encourage people who feel they have something to offer to check out the link in the previous post by Skaffen.

 

[VirtualLight]

You'd be suprised! Alot of the playerbase who play WoW actually consist of adults.

Most of the people I've met in the U.S. and Oceanic area playing are adults, yes, but then again I avoid what most (even teenagers) kids would do in the game, focusing on leveling and raiding... the same with EQ/EQ2 and other similar MMOs that paved the way for WoW. However, this doesn't count for the 3 hours a day or less player who's an adult nor does it count for the 1-5 hours a day player who's in their teens. One reason they have 10 million players is because the playerbase is full of casual teen gamers and this fantasy world that was created to be the MMO was created before most of them were out of grade school.

Entropia doesn't appeal to children; I've met one 16 year old who works and does chores and puts his money into Entropia and seems to have limited success with hunting and socializing. Being a socializer whether in explorer, PvP or PvE mode I've come to understand the appeal of social circles, groups such as teams or cliques and as well larger functional organized groups such as guilds or societies. I wholeheartedly love that most societies I'm tempted to join have up front "25 plus please", "20 plus please" as a requirement for entry and one I stumbled upon recently has my age, 27 as a requirement for joining.

With a RCE game that has RMT going on daily, the teens in middle school and high shcool don't belong due to risks inherent in their age as well as common behaviors exhibited by teenage gamers. If you're 17 and someone I'd like in a game, regardless I'll still avoid you if I know. I'm sure there are many who hide their age at times out there among mmo's who could get by on refillable or gift vard visa or mastercard cards, ultimate game cards and the like but I doubt many would have the assets to play a large amount of the time and keep up with it with their other responsibilities like school.

WoW isn't mostly adults, the forums and community sites are littered with trails of adults who put their time passionately spent into the game and also into such sites. The kids/teens are incapable of doing this for many reasons. Organize a top 10 guild and raid 'til 4AM on weekdays? Nah, no kids do that, however tons litter the area of the forum's more inconsequential posts and as well childish adults stating "check out my YTMND" "Vin Diesel and Chuck Norris will melt your face if you don't listen to me" and that line of tripe.

In a past society-like group we'd recruited 100 members to fill us at 144 to give us a good remaining playerbase after we cut the ones who were'nt good enough for our standards or caused problems. One who stayed slipped by us due to it being the summer and upon the school year coming around again we heard his mother a few times in the background on our ventrilo server, much to our surpise he was 15. A good player, yes and amusing with his antics at times, though half the guild ignored him, he was a raid asset to be called if someone didn't attend a raid. At questioning from the guild's Inner Council and Leader he admitted he'd lied on his application and couldn't attend enough raids to make attendence but had used us to get gear and levels and tried to pursuade us to make an exception to his age. As we had adult content on the guild forums and the like as well connections with community leaders and some game developers who our members are friends with we couldn't afford the liability of risking our image and exactly what went on in the guild as daily chat and what was posted to the forums by all adult members (mostly male, ) and what effect it had had on him and how other's might perceive our lax recruiting. A long story short; yes, these type of players abound but not many get presented to the public as a member of say, Afterlife, Fires of Heaven, Nerfed, et cetera in WoW. They won't be interviewed by game press on a "meet the community session" and are generally unwanted but if they're parents allow them to, they can play the game.

I'm ranting here a bit because of a few thing's I've read in this post just now impacted me a little. Given the nature of this interactive virtual world and client size, at this time I wouldn't put it past many people who just received a computer to join up, however it might be a few years before many have CryEngine capable hardware to have the game running to "beyond specifications speed". The userbase may flag as many thought AoC's would due to this but I don't think it'll be a hindrance to too many. On sale at best buy you can sometimes get a deal for under 500 or 600 to run the game perfectly, even with an onboard GPU by ATI or Nvidia (Far Cry 2). Some of these have non-dynamically allocated stacks of RAM and as well additional "managed by OS" RAM for video. Even my Intel X3100 GPU can manage quite a few things that surprised me; eq2, wow, warhammer, fps's, et cetera.

It's up in the air for many reasons. Pay to play games like Grand Chase aren't labeled as "RCE" for a reason; the RMT that's large that goes on in those games is mainly for fun by obsessed gamers. In this game it may appeal to some to invest quite a bit more on say, a hangar than on "tokens" and a "dragon helmet".

From my research I was never able to target the audience Entropia has as a singular entity but I do know this; regardless of fights, bickering, theft, idiocy, drama and certain negative attitudes; it's a place for a mature and at least somewhat financially stable person. I love it.

I've had differences of opinion with a few so far but I'm not going to let someone who's had limited interactions with other gamers in MMOs get in the way of my gaming. I'm a 10 year EQ vet, 4 year EQ2 vet, beta tested both until release and many expansions and have been doing it quite a bit since these type of games inception (not counting MUDs and MOOs I played) with UO then EQ.

This is not a "novel" approach to gaming, with a real cash ecnomy, but a godsend to me, as at times I've bought platinum or something way back win at and others, though it's forbidden by EULA and the ToS (of Everquest and like games) to sell currency, I did it anyway. (Yes, I'm a terrible person because I'm a gold, I mean PED farmer. ) NoGold and similar initiatives have to at least stay the hell away from this great sci-fi game and I get to interact with a virtual world in my preferred way; get ahead through any means and break even or cut my losses and play anyway.

I should hope many aren't forgetting, when it comes to PR what the new planet's done to the existing community; I could care less about upping regen of mobs (team more please, and shut up), other balancing mechanics being changed or whether or not the game's a money sink. That's not my call, as it's an opinion based upon relative lifestyles and playstyles which may be affected by these facts. Draw your own conclusive opnion from all presented facts with research and play or not, as I know if I don't care if an upset player plays or not, or whether or not a wackjob or irate player makes a scene on tihs forum or another place, it's not going to affect my playing. Consider all funds you put into the game as "spent" and if you manage to break even or gain from it in more than the gaming experience, congratulations, you may have been blessed as many others have.. I say many because I can read the forums and entropia-tracker.com. Yes, the game is subscription based. To progress, the game isn't free to play at those levels of interaction and types of interactions, 1 million sweat is worth a measely 2k ped. It's free to login with a self-designed avatar in try to interact with various parts of the world. It's a feature of the world to have enconomics and in Entropia, the faster you go to a higher level, the more it probably will cost you.

If someone has anything to add along similar lines of thinking, please do, but keep your "constructive criticism" of my post to yourself, I'm not trolling, I'm stating what's obvious to me.

A. Lockley

Lockley

 

[EarlVonKippler]

maybe a second, more mature marketing strategy based on the ideas i presented in the "i love this game" thread would attract a high caliber of player. not to say getting the unwashed masses eager for the promise of quick cash is terrible, it just creates more churn that it should. these are just my thoughts

 

[Dextar]

Yea I guess you could be right, maybe somewhere you can increase your accounts by 20,000% in five years. I just dont think it can be done on earth by 2013.

Hahah, OK let me ask you this one.

Pepsi (Makers of Mountain Dew and other popular Soft Drinks as well as most of the favorite Snack Chips like Lay's Potato Chips Doritos and Fritos) They are known for all sorts of give-aways.

One of their latest promotions is called Pepsi-stuff. You can get all sorts of stuff like Mp3 players and thumb drives and T-shirts etc. just by buying Pepsi products. No added costs to you when you get enough points you just go to the website and fill out the info and they send it to you free shipping.

In the past they have given away free Music CDs and there wasn't even any need to ship it. You just went to the store bought your Pepsi products and the cashier gave you the CD.

Now think for a second, if MA and Pepsi cut a deal for Pepsi-planet and they give away Entropia Universe Game CDs (a CD with the Download program that automatically downloads the EU files from the EU servers to your computer)with every purchase of a 12 pack of Pepsi. How many new customers do you think will sign up in the USA alone?

The problem is you are totally discounting the customer base all these new planets bring to the party.

Any Corporation with high net traffic now and contracts to make a Planet in EU is not going to "HOPE" people will show up on their new planet. They will direct their customers to EU and their brand new Planet.

Right Now Nvidia is listed on the Friends list. I wonder how many gamers would sign up for a free account if Nvida contracted for a Planet in EU and ran an in world promotion on Planet Nvidia where you could win a Hot new Vid Card by just sweating critters or gathering stuff off of the ground?

10K new accounts? 50K? More?



Dex

 

[AJack10600]

A lot of the bad rep is MAs fault... shows MA does not do any good advertising, does nothing to counter this bad reputation, does not listen to the community... most of the bad rep posts on mmorpg.com are from players that tried EU and were just pissed off with MA or the way the game went...

ok, some are ill founded, but some are valid... and EU is NOT an easy game for the average mmo player..

 

[psychnosiz]

I was actually quite suprised as 90% of the things that were being said were total lies, "such as the people who earn money from the game are on a contract with MA

Not completely a lie.

MA/Marco once said - in a very old post on the *rip?* EntropiaPioneers forum - that certain players could indeed be sponsored or paid for their professions ingame. While I don't believe they actually went through with this, it's impossible to prove otherwise because IF there would exists contracts they sure as hell will include a serious silence penalty clausule. MA always leaves all opportunities open when they reply to suggestions so they actively feed these sort of bad interprets.

You'd be suprised! Alot of the playerbase who play WoW actually consist of adults.

Adult does not equal mature (which is the aim of MA since VISA is one of it's most basic features).

They are going to have to do some SERIOUS advertising to make this happen.

The most efficient advertising is mouth-to-mouth and free money. I'd prefer they up the loot so I can motivate people again to enter this universe instead of wasting on a n00b advertising firm. They could even just pay players to do it in their place which would make even more people happy.

You think When the first major world goes live like PEPSI World or NIKE world or ALIEN vs PREDATOR world there won't be a few more people interested?

I don't think that number can be reached in the first years even with eBay, FB, MySpace & Google planets. Because there will always be competitors (like the number of movie space sagas that require a seperate universe) and due to a non-overwhelming PR people may leave as soon as they join.

Getting people to reg isn't hard, getting people to participate ... is something else.

 

[Dextar]

I don't think that number can be reached in the first years even with eBay, FB, MySpace & Google planets. Because there will always be competitors (like the number of movie space sagas that require a seperate universe) and due to a non-overwhelming PR people may leave as soon as they join.

Getting people to reg isn't hard, getting people to participate ... is something else.

Ahh the whole discussion I was commenting on is about getting people to register. The retention rate is another matter. People will check out anything that is free and interesting IF it is easy to do.

Autoload game CDs take care of the hardest part.
If a planet has anything at all that is easy to do and provides a bit of fun you will get people back.

A simple trivia kiosk where people can answer trivia questions would be enough to get lots of folks interested in coming back.

ingame exclusive movie previews for hot movies would draw in all sorts of people.

The possibilities for marketing are endless.

Imagine if Some large pop/rock group offered a free special EU Only download of their latest single on Planet Virgin Records?

Think a few people would sign up for that?



Dex

 

[jjmatrix]

Maybe instead of all these marketing stunts they can improve on the game play? And maybe re-balance the loot system?
That will definitely work in attracting the type of customers MA is targeting as well as retaining more of the current player base.
Just a thought...

 

[Dextar]

Maybe instead of all these marketing stunts they can improve on the game play? And maybe re-balance the loot system?
That will definitely work in attracting the type of customers MA is targeting as well as retaining more of the current player base.
Just a thought...

I think you will see improvements when CRyEngine is implemented (After they work out the bugs and yes there will be bugs. Its just the nature of the beast)

But I don't think these new planets will be Copies of Calypso with Product logos everywhere.

I think they will all have different gaming elements. You may be alble to hunt or mine on these new planets But I think the Planets Partners will have thier own game mechanics and content.

Dex

 

[Xandra]

Hi,

Something that i have only recently noticed is that there is a considerable amount of bad rep the game itself is recieving from general gamers.

It might help to understand this if I'm telling you of my experiences back in '06, when I actually tried to get some friends in. A lot of what of I heard then was repeated in this thread. And you might recognize that the situation in '06 was ways better then what we're suffering today - common loot was ways better, you'd even find something of value every other month, and skilling was a fast-paced enjoyment compared to today.

Well, let's start with the ones that had no experience with other MMORP's before:
Exactly all of them didn't even really start, after a short tour they declared me completely moronic and stated "This is just another scheme to rip your money!". Ooops.

The ones experienced with other MMORPG's were less harsh.
Most of them was angry of the clumsy control of your avatar - even today EU here is only comparable to some long forgotten early-90's MMORP's ...

But after a short while of participating many stated things like this:

There is still quite a bit people checking out EU as either a free game, or a sci-fi mmorpg, but what they find, is a ridiculously expensive gallery shooter, with slot machine style return system.

1$/ hour, right. Would my WoW account be like this, I'd pay more then double compared to what I actually pay.
But in EU I pay ways more, if I don't want to be reduced to most mind boggling maximum eco hardcore grind on boring little critters over and over - as soon as I want to have even a little fun, chances are very high I will lose ways above this sum! This was ways better back in '06, but even then my friends realized very soon that the cost of EU (PE then) is ways beyond tolerable:

The real problem with this game is that to do anything at a decent level it is so expensive.
I deposit on average $200 per month. Some months that barely makes me through the month. I play maybe 1 or 2 hours a night and most nights "blow" 100 ped on a hunting run - and that will take me less than an hour.
Do the maths - it is too expensive.

I'm sure someone will come telling us "It's your own fault", but I can understand this very well. I have deposited similar sums for quite some time, and all I reached was a lower middle class avatar worth approx. the money I dropped in, but only with a lot of luck buying some todays expensive tools early, and skilling what could be sold well today. And with a lot of masochism doing the grind over and over and over ...

I'm far from being able to participate in nearly any event with the slightest chance of success, I'm far from being able to hunt the mobs that drop the nice markup items, I'm just an Adjusted nOOb, with all of my skills & gear ...

This game is tailored for ppl ready to sink thousands or more of $ every month, best when starting with a real phat multi 10K $ to get things going - do this and you'll prevail! Enough examples.

Maybe this game wouldn't have such a bad rep, if it didn't screw people over, but that's just me.
This game does not meet the expectations placed on it when it was introduced in a local magazine, Its amazing I stayed this long, but I wanted to give it a go.
I lost everything.

This is what the few still remaining hardcores of my wannabe new participants stated. I, for myself, had the luck of being early, less ambitious and more stubborn. I didn't believe the "Earn money" propaganda, and I kept to my limits from the beginning.

But I know of a lot of ppl that have deposited ways more then 1k $, then stopped in desperation, and never did a withdrawal:

I will say that recently I tried to withdraw 11K peds and that was not a positive experience. Long story short I did a small 1K ped as a test, all went well. Replicated with 11K and they stopped the withdrawal as the bank account and game account name was different. The bank is a joint account with my wife. Well it was OK 1st time but not when making a big withdrawl. They then charged me some 1500 ped fees and left money ingame.

This is not a single case. There's not even any kind of juristic safety for us to withdraw - it's only at MA's good will, and ability to pay out. And since they seem not to have a reserved fund for withdrawals it just seems to be a matter of good timing determining if and when your withdrawal actually gets payed.
(Statement based of my interpretation of EULA and MA's quarterly report - I kindly ask for rebuttal if I should be wrong)

Due to experiences like this I have made it my habit to play EU secretly, not telling any RL acquaintance about it anymore - too often this has created bad moods, and disregard for me. This is not anything for Joe Sixpack.

I'm trying now to be helpful to new participants, giving away looted Goblin/ Pixie/ S30L/ CB5L for sweat at an suicidal rate, or offering guided/ protected team hunts /TP runs. But even this doesn't work - they are vanishing faster from friend list then I can get rid of my few looted low-TT S50L's ...

One success I had - I found a desperate newbie at Camp Phoenix some time ago, it was a very nice person. I did anything to help, got him into my Soc (even if he was way below the requirements), and we had lot's of fun. He did very well, even surpassed me in skills. Since about 1 month he's vanished. Guess his wife has made an end to this money spoiling ...

Well, EU in it's current state cannot get good critics from any persons testing. It's the most evil grinder ever, has costs light years above any comparison, and the possibilities to even reach "upper middle class" are close to zero, if you have a family and/ or not unlimited $ supply.

Many ppl do want a realistic perspective to reach the top, telling 'em like in todays EU "Forget it, you're too late, prepare to feed the more lucky ones" or "Sell your house, pets, wife & children, deposit the result, then add something more to have a chance" isn't exactly what ppl are expecting.

How would such a situation yield good results? A bad rating on gamers sites is inevitably, even if some here are trying their best to fake this ("Vote for ...").

Why are we still here, then? Maybe because of this?

The only reason to play EU is so obvious people are ashamed to admit. Its the chance of the big hit, nothing else.

I guess Cani is right. Isn't it exactly the dream of this one big loot, with an UL Imp version of our preferred weapon that keeps us wasting PED's and PED's? Or at least enough value to buy [insert any desirable]?

Let's face it, EU is a casino, and we are the gambling addicts. For sure this will not be regarded well by outsiders. And because of this any reception of EU in any Gamers portal will consequently be bad. Maybe better look at Gamblers portals?

Have fun!

PS:
1.): I'd like to state that this much "casino" like we have today is beyond my tolerance. I'm still here to see what will come, and I really hope that there will be some planets with less "casino"!
2.): Would I want to earn to money today with playing a MMORPG, I'd cut my times in EU & add to my times in WoW. Much more easy to do, and much more reliable - would I want to do (and be ready to spent the time I'm now in EU, too) I could easily get a constant cash flow of some 100$/ month.

 

[psychnosiz]

Ahh the whole discussion I was commenting on is about getting people to register. The retention rate is another matter. People will check out anything that is free and interesting IF it is easy to do.

*snip*

The retention rate is most important, most companies spend lots of time and effort to try and persuade customers to keep buying their brand. Registration amounts are futile since those numbers can easely be manipulated and have no influence whatsoever on the universe ingame.

Autoload CD's are equally useless for a game which is free to download. Most of the people this universe will try to attract in the future think the cdloader is a coffeetray anyway ... Same for trivia kiosks, inet is swarmed by those already and aren't that much fun anymore since Google arrived, they will require prices and all that budget should be used for the biggest publicity features ... loot & virtual success ("tired of killing monsters and blablabla").

Imagine if Some large pop/rock group offered a free special EU Only download of their latest single on Planet Virgin Records. Think a few people would sign up for that?

Not as long as there are lightweight browser and application alternatives who can publish this content before it's available to the audience.

ND should invite Kraftwerk or similar to spin a set at his club. If they post a message with a code which allow you to download certain tracks during the hours that they are ingame then the success rate of such an idea can be easely verified. I'm not going to a similar planet anyway since 99% of commercial tracks are junk anyway (I would just take the largest bazooka on auction and try to hunt Britney).

 

[Doer]

"I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right."

Variously attributed to Mae West, Will Rogers, Mark Twain, and a handful of other colorful characters, this quote reflects fairly healthy perspective toward PR when it comes to publicity.

 

[Dextar]

The retention rate is most important, most companies spend lots of time and effort to try and persuade customers to keep buying their brand. Registration amounts are futile since those numbers can easely be manipulated and have no influence whatsoever on the universe ingame.

Autoload CD's are equally useless for a game which is free to download. Most of the people this universe will try to attract in the future think the cdloader is a coffeetray anyway ... Same for trivia kiosks, inet is swarmed by those already and aren't that much fun anymore since Google arrived, they will require prices and all that budget should be used for the biggest publicity features ... loot & virtual success ("tired of killing monsters and blablabla").


Not as long as there are lightweight browser and application alternatives who can publish this content before it's available to the audience.

ND should invite Kraftwerk or similar to spin a set at his club. If they post a message with a code which allow you to download certain tracks during the hours that they are ingame then the success rate of such an idea can be easely verified. I'm not going to a similar planet anyway since 99% of commercial tracks are junk anyway (I would just take the largest bazooka on auction and try to hunt Britney).

You are in the mindset of the hardcore gamer. You need to step outside that mindset and realize that the widespread market is more of chat and play not hardcore grinding and such.

The people partner planets are going to attract are CONSUMERS not a niche audience. But Consumers can game also they are just not going to spend 4 years leveling an avatar.

Realize this is not an either/or proposition the Consumer EU account will exist alongside the gamer EU account. They won't have the same goals and they would not be retained in the same manner. At least this seems the path we are headed.

And as far as Planet Virign Records idea goes if I were running such and wanted to attract people to my planet I would make the download availabel ONLY ingame. You could still play it out of game but you had to go ingame to get it.

There would be lots of folks who would check it out even with the music pirating issue add to it some Real Life geegaw, button, poster etc. and you would get a goodly number of new accounts. Add to the goodies, ingame branded clothing so you could pimp out your avatar and you have the makings of a tidy consumer oreiented game platform.


Dex

 

[Harvest]

MA's master plan as far as I can see it is "Noob X just hit a prize worth $1,000,000!!!!" Then all those whiners, will continue their whining as they make new accounts, and continue their whining as they empty their bank accounts trying to win I huge HOF and also continue their whining, broke as they leave EU for a game more in their price range....something on PlaySation 2 maybe?

 

[SpikeBlack]

And as far as Planet Virign Records idea goes if I were running such and wanted to attract people to my planet I would make the download availabel ONLY ingame. You could still play it out of game but you had to go ingame to get it.

your forgetting that a lot of people have a restricted bandwidth on their net accounts (1 or 2Gb per month is quite normal in the UK). Some broadband accounts dont even allow internet based games to be used on them, so how would people on those accounts download a 2-4Gb client (or even more with CE2) only to get a 10mb mp3 file?

 

[Naifas Anaconda]

You didn't misunderstand, but you failed to translate. He said "vanlig", which is not the same as "average". A more correct translation would be "common".

An average is something you can calculate. "Vanlig" could be anything. It could be 5 people.

And all these words were filtered through a journalist.

Perhaps it was one of those "out of context" things. Perhaps what was ment was: "The average of players [that take money out of the game] take around 20.000 ped... blablabla... using this card blablabla... that's what makes us unique." Rephrasing: each player that cashes out do so in an average amount of 20.000 ped. And now (then) can use this wonderfull card (that doesn't work, but we will make the transaction faster if you own one, that's what makes us unique! )

 

[Darkewulfe]

It deserves its bad rep in my opinion.

 

[Dextar]

your forgetting that a lot of people have a restricted bandwidth on their net accounts (1 or 2Gb per month is quite normal in the UK). Some broadband accounts dont even allow internet based games to be used on them, so how would people on those accounts download a 2-4Gb client (or even more with CE2) only to get a 10mb mp3 file?

I see so because SOME can't download the game ALL would not?

is this your position?

Dex

 

[Vedder]

...
Something that i have only recently noticed is that there is a considerable amount of bad rep the game itself is recieving from general gamers. I was browsing one of the largest MMO forums on the net at work just out of curiosity to see if i could find anything on Entropia. I assumed for the most part, many gamers (in particular ones interested into mmo's) weren't aware that it even existed. Turns out that alot of poeple actually have bad opions of the game, thinking its a game purely for "gamblers", "promises of high riches"... and so much more.

I was actually quite suprised as 90% of the things that were being said were total lies...

Yes, it's sad really.

But, I think many people don't stop to think, when they see ads like "Tired of not getting paid for hunting" (or whatever MAs ads say), and many of these (probably mostly teen kids) have completely unrealistic expectations when they try out EU at first.
So, they get very disappointed when they realize, that they are not gonna get rich from hunting in EU. And some of them, feels lied to or scammed by MA.

That being said, it's really low to spread lies like these, especially when EU is actually really cool. (Imo)

 

[Darkewulfe]

Yes, it's sad really.

But, I think many people don't stop to think, when they see ads like "Tired of not getting paid for hunting" (or whatever MAs ads say), and many of these (probably mostly teen kids) have completely unrealistic expectations when they try out EU at first.
So, they get very disappointed when they realize, that they are not gonna get rich from hunting in EU. And some of them, feels lied to or scammed by MA.

That being said, it's really low to spread lies like these, especially when EU is actually really cool. (Imo)

They wouldn't make assumptions if the leeway wasn't there, at least in my opinion. MAs PR dept is partly responsible, as are the users.

 

[Harvest]

They wouldn't make assumptions if the leeway wasn't there, at least in my opinion. MAs PR dept is partly responsible, as are the users.

I dont know about the leeway part, ppl assume a lot of stuff that IMO is absolutely baseless. I do agree, that MAs PR department is responsible for the "Win lots of $" and this does have a very big negative affect when these expectation aren't meant.