Entropia - A better Second Life ?

[Gankoholic]

I was surfing the net and i came across this article .
Entropia Universe : A Better Second Life ?


..."
It depends on what you like. With a retention rate of 16% for Second Life amongst US users, it’s clear that many don’t enjoy what Second Life has to offer, despite the hype. One criticism I hear regularly about Second Life is that it’s aimless; it’s not a game so there is nothing really to do other than enjoy virtual sex and play Tringo. Now before I am shouted down by a legion of Second Life groupies, I do see Second Life’s appeal as a creative and social space, but not everyone wants to get online and build virtual strip clubs or interrupt interviews with flying penises.
Entropia Universe offers the best of both Second Life and World of Warcraft style virtual worlds. The creativity and capitalism of Second Life can be experienced along with solid game play and decent graphics. If they can fix the issues with downloading the client (hint: bittorrent) and you don’t mind downloading a 1gb file it’s definitely worth a look. If it builds members so the social aspect becomes stronger, we could well be looking at a better Second Life, and already one that will appeal to a much more broader audience."


Full article here http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/17/entropia-universe-a-better-second-life/


Ohh and some stuff about cryengine and the expand to china here http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/entropia-universe/

 

[Legion]

I was surfing the net and i came across this article .
Entropia Universe : A Better Second Life ?


..."
It depends on what you like. With a retention rate of 16% for Second Life amongst US users, it’s clear that many don’t enjoy what Second Life has to offer, despite the hype. One criticism I hear regularly about Second Life is that it’s aimless; it’s not a game so there is nothing really to do other than enjoy virtual sex and play Tringo. Now before I am shouted down by a legion of Second Life groupies, I do see Second Life’s appeal as a creative and social space, but not everyone wants to get online and build virtual strip clubs or interrupt interviews with flying penises.
Entropia Universe offers the best of both Second Life and World of Warcraft style virtual worlds. The creativity and capitalism of Second Life can be experienced along with solid game play and decent graphics. If they can fix the issues with downloading the client (hint: bittorrent) and you don’t mind downloading a 1gb file it’s definitely worth a look. If it builds members so the social aspect becomes stronger, we could well be looking at a better Second Life, and already one that will appeal to a much more broader audience."


Full article here http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/17/entropia-universe-a-better-second-life/


Ohh and some stuff about cryengine and the expand to china here http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/entropia-universe/

heh i cant agree with that article a whole lot, eu provide solid gaming like *cough*wow*cough*? that just made me lol. EU IS second life, with 3 additions, hunting, mining and crafting.. more or less, and that's it.. a bit better gfx to i guess.

 

[heehaw]

...The creativity and capitalism of Second Life....

in eu?

 

[Tseng]

First off, the figures from this articles are somewhat wrong.

This 16% have absolute no significance, because they are totally ripped out of content. What you (or better the writer of the article) lacked to research before writing this article is. That's because shortly before this numbers was calculated is that Second Life opened it's registrations for every one. So it' wasn't necessary to enter a valid credit card number in order to register (also there wasn't any monthly subscribtion fee as it was few years before).

This of course lead to a huge increase of registered users, who coundn't (or wouldn't) register before, due to lack of CC or simply didn't want to give their CC info just to register. And it's well known that especially in european regions CCs usage isn't that common as it is in the US. So probably 60% of all people who joined between Jan und March 2007 was from europe who registered because the opened registration and thus the amount of US residents just seems to be low with 16%. A typical error (or on purpose to manipulate peoples mind) on bad research.

As for the other points, it's correct that Second Life has no strict gameplay or endgame, that's because SL was made as virtual world in mind and not a game (unlike EU which falsely calls itself virtual world or virtual universe). And SL is indeed a real virtual world, because it's made by its players, influenced by it's players and for the most part controled by it's players (take out some of the legal stuff as no banking, gambling etc.). And the economy there is more real than the in Entropia. In SL you don't depend on luck to earn money. You can earn money by working and using your real skills. You don't become rich cause you luckily shoot a mob who looted 10.000$.
Also important point to mention is that in SL all the money that was deposited - expenses (fees, buying land from lindenlabs, upload fees etc.) remains in the possession of the players all the time. If all SL players would decide to cash out all the money at once, it would be possible and the universe would totally lack of any money. In EU this is not the case. Most of the money in EU is stucked within the game and only a small part is in the possession of players (stucked in so called loot pools where it can't be withdrawn or be used by the players until it appears in loot).

So from RCE point of view, SL is by far superior to EU. It has many more opportunities to make money and it's not depending on luck to earn money (professions supported by the gameplay mechanics are all based on mostly luck, such as mining, hunting, crafting while professions who aren't invovled with EU gameplay such as trading, land owning aren't depending on luck but on hard work and real skill as in SL)

On other side, since SL doesn't have any gameplay it's not for the "gamers". Even though it's possible to create own games and roleplay sims, it doesn't have a goal to follow. You do things to have fun, may it be shoping, socializing with others, roleplay or some pvp combat on special sims designed for it. Compare it more to the real life as going out in the sport center, playing tenis or go shopping. So for not so creative people and ones who don't wanna work hard, EU is the better choice.

But at the same, the gameplay part is EUs biggest negative point.
- Too high luck factor
- Personal skill doesn't matter much
- Weak to non-existent mid/endgame (compared to other classical MMOs) as there are no quests, raids (take out the robot ships) etc.
- Very expensive
- Endless skill grinding with low skill impact

So the conclusion that EU offers best of WoW (infact WoW can't even be really compared to EU) and SL is just completly wrong. The more appropriate term would be a (mediocre) mix of RPG elements (just RPG elements not a specific MMO) and real money/gambling. And the gameplay part isn't very strong in EU, we just have to hope that it will get better at some time.

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

heh i cant agree with that article a whole lot, eu provide solid gaming like *cough*wow*cough*? that just made me lol. EU IS second life, with 3 additions, hunting, mining and crafting.. more or less, and that's it.. a bit better gfx to i guess.

Er.... SL and EU is nothing* like eachother really


*well a bit..

 

[Gankoholic]

First off, the figures from this articles are somewhat wrong.

This 16% have absolute no significance, because they are totally ripped out of content. What you (or better the writer of the article) lacked to research before writing this article is.

Not me and the quote is just a small part form the article and the article is a part of a bigger article

 

[Doer]

... and that article was published a year ago...

The graphics engine behind Entropia Universe purrs. Even with relatively low settings the experience was seamless, and despite entering areas with large gatherings of people there were zero lag issues, a constant negative in Second Life.

That just goes to show the difference that context makes. Compared to SL, EU has "zero lag issues" .

 

[PINKY]

If all SL players would decide to cash out all the money at once, it would be possible and the universe would totally lack of any money.

I am no expert on SL or the economics of currencies, but if that happened, due to the fact SL does not have a fixed currency convertion rate like EU - wouldnt the exchange rate collapse, effectivly making Linden dollars worthless?

Ok, so the first few thousand to withdraw would be fine, but a sudden influx of massive quantaties of L$ being made available would collapse the economy....

Feel free to correct me anyone who actually does know about this stuff...

 

[Gankoholic]

I am no expert on SL or the economics of currencies, but if that happened, due to the fact SL does not have a fixed currency convertion rate like EU - wouldnt the exchange rate collapse, effectivly making Linden dollars worthless?

Ok, so the first few thousand to withdraw would be fine, but a sudden influx of massive quantaties of L$ being made available would collapse the economy....

Feel free to correct me anyone who actually does know about this stuff...

Residents may purchase L$ directly through the client, or convert between Linden currency and U.S. currency through either Linden Lab's currency brokerage, the LindeX Currency Exchange, or other third-party currency exchanges.[citation needed] The ratio of USD to L$ fluctuates daily as Residents set the buy and sell price of L$ offered on the exchange, with average rates between L$260/USD and L$320/USD between October 2005 and September 2006.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Second_Life#LindeX_Currency_Exchange
so you would be right.

 

[Acronoid]

Don't compare SL, EU and WOW with each other. It are 3 different types of games, with a different audience.

IMHO SL sucks for the reason that why I should pay to make 3D stuff I have proffesional programs at home. And the things I make could be usefull in games or mods.

EU costs more, but provides a "gaming feeling" and the carrot of being able to make money. It has a mature audience and can be fun or frustration, depending on the day.

WOW could be fun, but is childish in my opinion. The fake epic feeling and from what I heard young audience.

Online boardgames can be fun too, but lack the rgp and realtime element.

P&P RPG's could be the most fun, but are very rare to find, and may be even more fun without a computer, but actually with a pen & paper in a nice cafe.

Online shooters can be fun too, but I lack the skill, and it is very repetitive.

Online strategy games can be real fun too, but lack the RGP element. And I prefer to play them of directlink or LAN (same with shooters actually).

Point is there is something for every gamer, and you can't compare the different types of games. A flavor for everyone and [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum"[/FONT]

 

[Tseng]

I am no expert on SL or the economics of currencies, but if that happened, due to the fact SL does not have a fixed currency convertion rate like EU - wouldnt the exchange rate collapse, effectivly making Linden dollars worthless?

No, you're right of course. It was a more hypothetical example. What i wanted to say is, that there aren't any money sinks in where the money is inaccessible (like in EUs so-called loot pools). If you buy an item in SL, that money goes fully to the seller, so money only changed hands between players. If you hunt or mine in EU and only get 50 ped back on a 200 PED hunting run (as an extreme), 150 PED are stucked in the lootpool.

Residents may purchase L$ directly through the client, or convert between Linden currency and U.S. currency through either Linden Lab's currency brokerage, the LindeX Currency Exchange, or other third-party currency exchanges.[citation needed] The ratio of USD to L$ fluctuates daily as Residents set the buy and sell price of L$ offered on the exchange, with average rates between L$260/USD and L$320/USD between October 2005 and September 2006.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Second_Life#LindeX_Currency_Exchange
so you would be right.

Correctly, at least half of it. The value fluctuate a bit, but is mostly stable, because Linden Labs is trying to stablize it. i.e. if more people want to sell L$ than people who want to buy L$, Linden Labs buys the L$ to keep the price stable. Same otherwise, if more people want to buy L$ but not enough people selling L$, Linden Labs throw in more L$ (read sells them) so that the demand keeps stable, to prevent overextended inflation rate.

IMHO SL sucks for the reason that why I should pay to make 3D stuff I have proffesional programs at home. And the things I make could be usefull in games or mods.

I think you got something wrong about SL. Building things in SL is free in general. You don't have to pay a cent/L$ if you wanna make stuff. There are sandboxes everywhere where you can create stuff or script stuff etc. You only have small fee (10L$ = ~5-7 cent) for uploading textures, sounds animations. You only need to pay money if you wanna own your own land (or even a whole sim). But you can also rent land and only pay rent fee w/o the need of an subscription (10$/month iirc).

And if you don't like to build stuff, pay someone other to make your house, clothes, skins, hair, animations etc.

EU costs more, but provides a "gaming feeling" and the carrot of being able to make money. It has a mature audience and can be fun or frustration, depending on the day.

But the carrot is on a very thin line between frustration and making money. But honestly i don't know what makes you think SL has less mature people. I'd say the percentaged of mature and inmature people is roughly as same as in EU just that EU has less active people so it's not so obviously. We have idiots, kiddies and scammer in both SL and EU.

The scum there tries to sell copied items (i.e. if the owner set wrong properties on his items) or freebies (which where offered for free by it's creator for the newbies) and the scum here in EU is called resellers and market manipulators

WOW could be fun, but is childish in my opinion. The fake epic feeling and from what I heard young audience.

Wouldn't call it fake epic feeling. For the endgame stuff you have to work hard and in a guild with competent people to complete the endgame stuff. There are maybe just 3-4% of all players who can successfully master the endgame in WoW. Younger audience? Well true, for most guilds (usually the mediocre ones and 5 man guilds). The Endgame guilds are usually all with people above the age of 18 (up to the age of 30-40)

 

[Adamas]

If EU wanted to be more like SL all they'd have to do is introduce Sex and Nudity, (why else does anyone go there)

For SL to become more like EU is impossible.

But like its been said, you can compair the two and there is some kind of game for every gamer.

 

[Uvas]

I go there to make money.

I make a nice supplimentary income from Second Life, with the potential to get much bigger.

I can definately say that SL is nothing like EU. That doesn't make one better than the other.

I enjoy them both.

 

[Snabble]

i think people who say SL isnt just like EU havent played sl

They are exactly the same game except SL doesnt mask slot machines with little creatures that run around
SL has actual slot machines.. when i played SL i went to the slot machines and plugged away, when i play EU i do the exact same.
Both games offer to let you play these slot machines without depositing

Both games offer you the ability to deposit real money so you can play the slot machines.


Some differeneces is SL lets the owner of the slot machine determine its payout.
I think MA could learn from this.
LA owners should be able to determine taxes but also pay out.
This may seem complicated but not really, christ they made bank owners deposit 1 billion extra peds for banks no one uses.



I can easily see a guy being able to determine payout on his LA only. This would draw hunters and increase competition in the game and in the end players are the ones who would win.
The way it is now , you can hunt snabble or falax but your chances of winning never change. You can use opalo or imk2, your chances of winning never change.
You can have 3000k skills or none, your chances are always the same.



One things about SL is its not all about slot machines, (like in SL some people buy land and make a spooky cemetary/haunted house theme, I thought that was so kewl, just as a place to hang out)lots of people in the game get to own land for a reasonable price, this makes it so everyone feels included , unlike EU where MA could never afford to let everyone get involved because its not about people getting involved and having fun, its all about profit for MA and fun can never get in the way of profits.
Its like you have MA and uber rich depositers and every single other player is just passing thru.
The trade off for MA is that either a few rich people own land or make land affordable so everyone can have a piece for small fee. MA caters to a few people with alot of money where SL caters to alot of people with a little money.
IN SL you can make money from being creative(you can make your own items to sell) creativity can seperate you from everyone else, there is none of that in EU simply because as long as EU controls all content they get a share of the money, i think its very limiting as to how long this game can last.

I read a post where some players said "I told my friend about EU and how much you have to deposit to play to get a gun and armor and a fap and maybe some skills, and she said, They all said im crazy, thats way to much money...
and you know what, they are exactly right...most of your big spenders are totally out of your mind crazy...

 

[Moonfish]

Art

To up load Art in Sl costs 10L$ 4 cents or 2 pence..... frames cost nothing, there is no decay....

In Eu its more like $20 + $20 frame + frame decay..

You can stream live Movies at zero cost.....

I dont think you can compare them really but there are 100's of islands you can go and PVP in - fly around in detailed Star Wars X-wings/Tie fighters - attach your babble type recognition tool and you can type talk to anyone in any languague and its converted instantly on your screen...

Eu has many great qualities, the movement is great, the experience is nice to run around on the planet, and the idea of getting rich interests alot of people.

Friendships and societies are much the same and they both have & allow you to develope and enjoy relationships and meeting up with freinds. Saying that EU's friends list is capped - SL's isnt, so interation with a much larger number of people and groups is possible - 25 Societies you can be in at the same time.

Sl has alot of fantastic stuff & so has EU, I like them both for differnt reasons.

my 2 pecs
Moonfish

Oh and movie making there is highly advanced in sl (not the ones we made, but still great)... but I wont go on, I love Eu to bits and most of the people I meet and interacte with.. Eu still Rocks.

 

[Centech]

I don't want it to be like SL. I want my GAME back. I don't want a virtual universe.. I don't want multimedia.. I want to kill monsters and get some loot.

 

[Lobbe]

EU ROCKS and there isn't any better game out THERE eu for the WIN I LOVE IT

 

[craze3]

EU paid for blog review advertising on techcrunch. There's a few more articles on there too, just search "Entropia" on techcrunch.com.

In before ?

 

[E.K.x]

EU still cant be an MMO in the sense.

As long as there is loot the economy in EU will always be unstable.

 

[Uvas]

i think people who say SL isnt just like EU havent played sl

They are exactly the same game except SL doesnt mask slot machines with little creatures that run around
SL has actual slot machines.. when i played SL i went to the slot machines and plugged away, when i play EU i do the exact same.
Both games offer to let you play these slot machines without depositing

Both games offer you the ability to deposit real money so you can play the slot machines.


Some differeneces is SL lets the owner of the slot machine determine its payout.
I think MA could learn from this.
LA owners should be able to determine taxes but also pay out.
This may seem complicated but not really, christ they made bank owners deposit 1 billion extra peds for banks no one uses.



I can easily see a guy being able to determine payout on his LA only. This would draw hunters and increase competition in the game and in the end players are the ones who would win.
The way it is now , you can hunt snabble or falax but your chances of winning never change. You can use opalo or imk2, your chances of winning never change.
You can have 3000k skills or none, your chances are always the same.



One things about SL is its not all about slot machines, (like in SL some people buy land and make a spooky cemetary/haunted house theme, I thought that was so kewl, just as a place to hang out)lots of people in the game get to own land for a reasonable price, this makes it so everyone feels included , unlike EU where MA could never afford to let everyone get involved because its not about people getting involved and having fun, its all about profit for MA and fun can never get in the way of profits.
Its like you have MA and uber rich depositers and every single other player is just passing thru.
The trade off for MA is that either a few rich people own land or make land affordable so everyone can have a piece for small fee. MA caters to a few people with alot of money where SL caters to alot of people with a little money.
IN SL you can make money from being creative(you can make your own items to sell) creativity can seperate you from everyone else, there is none of that in EU simply because as long as EU controls all content they get a share of the money, i think its very limiting as to how long this game can last.

I read a post where some players said "I told my friend about EU and how much you have to deposit to play to get a gun and armor and a fap and maybe some skills, and she said, They all said im crazy, thats way to much money...
and you know what, they are exactly right...most of your big spenders are totally out of your mind crazy...

First of all, gambling is banned in SL. No slot machines, dude. No gambling. I was there when the ban took effect. Made a ripple in the economy that broke the inworld banks, but the economy proved to be resilient and bounced back and is stronger than ever. The good thing out of that is that all scam artist bankers are now banned too.

Secondly, the whole world is vaguely comparable to Eu's auction. Except in SL you can buy and sell what ever you like from whomever you like at whatever price you agree on. You can also build your own shop to hawk your wares for next to nothing. You can advertise, own as much land as you can afford, and of course build whatever your skills allow you to...SL is definately for the more creative, while EU seems to be geared towards gameplay.

Two fairly different animals as far as I can see...but I am a newbie here. Maybe there are more outlets for creativity than I am aware of.

 

[micker]

Actually, this is the article that got me to EU last year. After reading this article I went and downloaded the client, ran around a bit and got hooked. The Gods of Chaos already existed as a regiment in another game, I told everyone about this and a dozen or so other members started playing EU as well and most still do.

Personally I thought it was a great article and would love to see Michael Arrington do a follow up after the crytek upgrade.

 

[Spawn]

It's a nice article indeed. And I wonder how the press will react once we have the cryengine update applied.. Then a nice comparison to second life and world of warcraft and eve-online and guildwars and age of conan and starwars galaxies can begin.

 

[Gluepot]

Entropia Universe offers the best of both Second Life and World of Warcraft style virtual worlds.

Errr, I see NOTHING that is ANYTHING like WoW lol. WoW I think has better game play (it has a story line, quests, etc.) while Entropia has a purpose (when you decide to quit you can cash out rather than having wasted your time, although you can still sell WoW accounts....).

 

[eragon]

strange :/ never can take what gets spit out by any media source at face value these days....

i tried SL for a short time. and only thing i did was play in the *sandbox*. it seems like some sort of virtual club, with nobody around.

WoW, good gameplay, dont need good system to play and good for when i dont have enough $$ to do what i enjoy in EU.

now... EU! up until recently, i enjoyed it very much. but i have problems with money... seems to go faster than i can depo . very fun to socialize and competition is great too at times.

EU is a whole different beast than those other games. dont see how you can compare then except on the broadest terms.

 

[Spawn]

now that everybody has had it's say

rule #15?

-rep me at will, but i feel somehow not all mortals are treated equally.

 

[Nazbrat]

after reading the article and reading a few outsider comments on tech say about entropia universe. i saw a few comments there from current entropians. EU is spread by word of mouth advertising and has been for years. Seeing such articles does make people curious as to what its all about. i really think we need More players to respond to that comment with there own experiences. and any website that does the same.

 

[AlphaGeek]

Interesting that there's a 16% retention rate cited for "those other guys" in the article...

700000 * .16 = 112000.

I'm afraid that's about as scientific as it gets 'cuz MA will *never* publish a statistic like that!

AG

 

[Snabble]

Interesting that there's a 16% retention rate cited for "those other guys" in the article...

700000 * .16 = 112000.

I'm afraid that's about as scientific as it gets 'cuz MA will *never* publish a statistic like that!

AG

They wont post a stats like that because retention in Eu is probably about 3-5% if that
I mean if you wanna say eu had 500k players sign up and good estimate is about 5-10k players are playing regularly it would just be an embarassment
If MA's retention was 16% they would yell from the highest mountain so we know it isnt even close to that not even in the same ballpark

 

[Lobbe]

EU for REAL boy u understand what to do many of my friend who have tried EU thinks it's hard to understand and WHAT TO DO!!! they are kinda childish and play wow ^^

 

[BULL]

I have only played PE/EU. These other 2 games I can say for certain I will never even take a peak. From what I've heard already SL sounds pretty lame. I have seen my friend's teenage son play the other one and that looks like a little kids game. EU is a great concept and a kick-ass game to play. Problem with this one like someone wrote, EXPENSIVE.