Project Entropia: scam?
I've been looking at some of the Second Life-type MMOG's lately and one big name is Project Entropia. One thing I noticed in many of the comments people make in response to press released concerning Entropia is that, similar to Second Life, the difficulty is not in making money within the virtual world but rather being able to cash out, once you've made it.
Here are a few of the enlightening responses from my research about Project Entropia and their more significant in-game auctions:
1. The game is a big scam , already targeted by the USA authorities for criminal activities. Also Mindark , the game company , is sued in an European Court for corruption and fraudulent relationships with some Entropia ” participants ” . Mindark’s basic investors are some shady ” businessmen ” located in Belize and Cayman islands , wich already are under investigations by FBI and CIA for money laundering and terrorists fundings. MasterCard already ceased to do business with Mindark and any serious Bank is now very carefull when about Mindark and Entropia. They are under the suspicions of ID theft as well. Just take care and beware.
Comment by Morinit — 1/6/2007 @ 3:29 pm
2. I used to play project entropia….
Years ago….since the times of beta and all the good rubberband effects of the time… A dupe bug did exist once upon a time, I remmember it still to this day (items duplicating all over the ground… in the thousands), I aquired thousands of peds worth in 1 trade, all Duped Gear then TTed… I have never deposited and never will, because i know this game is a scam, its true that mindark only gives the HOFs to swedish, or people who are their mates. It is possible to make a profit, that being said, you have to be careful, not to make too much of a profit so you stand out to them - they will shut you down, and you have to be really smart about how you talk to people and what you do, they do have allies in the game (their HOF mates) that will report you if you are doing something thats giving you an edge… I met a person in the game who had discovered a way to profit by a large margin, and he explained his system to me, afterwards I was making a large profit, and so was he.. eventually we both got permanently banned because we were hofing too much… I dont want to go into too much detail, but beware… If you are going to play PE, watch what you do, what you say, and how much you try to withdraw… And if you find something that is making you a decent profit… dont get greedy… they record everything you say.. Just keep quiet about any success you have, it could be your undoing, Good Luck
Comment by Mystery Man — 12/10/2006 @ 4:20 am
Here's my favorite one, posted back in 2006 as well. It's a great post and it explains the reasons why something like Project Entropis is unwelcoming to new comers and ought to be considered a money sink rather than a money maker. You can view all the comments/responses to the original article/blog post here:
3. After playing entropia for 8 months, the latest VU (version update) has really kiled the game …. allow me to explain. The first thing a player does in Entropia is collect sweat from animals and sell it to other players and indeed is how I started the game. The latest VU has taken the cap off this activity - resulting in nobody buying the players sweat. I have seen new players trying to sell for 3-4 hours, logging off and never returning. Result new players leaving very quickly and the starting town “Port Atlantis” looking like a ghost town.
Secondly the new VU has made everything — harder— crafting,hunting,mining— resulting in older players leaving daily. The ones who are stll playing have raised their prices on tools, weapons, etc, that are bought by players of lower lvl coming into the game, to keep their costs covered. The result is that prices are becoming untennable - MA hve priced them out the market.
The other reasons people are leaving (including myself), are the following….
a) - Over the last 6 months prices for raw materials have increased on average 10%-15%.
b)- With increased raw material costs and lower crafting success rates, this has resulted in items within the game increasing to incredulous prices.
c)- Auction rigging, reseller madness, and scamming are becoming common place now- as unseeing players try to cope with the increasing costs within the game.
Currently no new players are staying around, prices are constantly going up, older players are leaving daily. The main increase I noticed was for space flights to the asteroid. at first the price was 16 PED(1.60US one way), then 20 PED, and now advertised at 25 PED…. all witin 6 months.
RIP Entropia — The Gamers Lost- Beggerman ;-(
So yeah, if you were thinking about making money with Entropia, you should probably recast your question in terms of how much money you're willing to lose before ever seeing a dime. If you want to sell virtual currencies, you're probably going to have to trade legality for support: WoW gold is a much more profitable venture, unfortunately its a breach of the user agreement; Entropia is fully supported but is more of a sink than an earner. Ironic, isn't it?
Anyway, eventually exactly requested amount (minus fees ofc) appeared to my bank account.
