Hello all,
MindArk has been known for having a veil of secrecy around the company and around the development of Entropia Universe. This has catered for paranoia and conspiracies in the community and created an unnecessary distance between the developers and the community. I have several ideas for the future which I hope will bring more insight and relax the situation. One of these is to once again enable the Vote booths inworld, hopefully within six months time (the delay is due to having backbone tools for us and be able to use the statistics gathered from the various polls in there, so we actually can use it to make informed decisions). Until then I go for a web based solution here at EntropiaForum.
My ambition is to show what MindArk is thinking about in terms of future developments to Entropia Universe. Equally important is to show why we think the way we think. Some things mentioned will certainly be seen as inherently "good", some "bad", but I trust you will have easier time to understand a change if you also know the motivation behind it.
MindArk always strives to make Entropia Universe as enjoyable as possible for as many as possible. We also have in our vision the need for changes and upgrades to not let Entropia Universe become rigid and old. The development team is still quite small for an operation like Entropia is, and we have many, many ideas for the future and the vision of development stretches several decades ahead. This is old news for the veterans in the community but maybe new info for the newcomers – Entropia, like most MMOG's, have generation shifts continuously, meaning old knowledge is forgotten and old truths become lost.
Enough with the introduction. Here is the first topic – The Auction.
THE AUCTION FEE
Why?
The auction fee needs to be modified to address the following problems:
* The 1 PED fee is generally very low, which makes it extremely hard for participant-owned shops to compete fairly.
* Shops should have advantage over the Auction based on price. The auction should have advantage in the form of easy access from almost everywhere inworld, but at a higher fee.
* A fee of 1 PED makes it hard to sell low profit items.
* For items with high market value the current 1 PED fee is negligible. Participant at Club Neverdie therefore use the auction as a substitute for storage facilities. Some avatars have ‘constant’ auctions at very high buyout just in case someone is crazy enough to pay so much. These auctions make it harder to browse the auction, cause strain to the backbone system, and pollutes any attempt to analyze market prices.
* Many of our users want to put up more than the maximum limit of objects on auction. They feel that they could do more business we would also get more turnover in the auction system.
How!
* A general reduction of land tax for shops (probably at 50% of today's 5 PED, to 2.5 PED).
* An increase in fee for putting items for sale in the auction. The new fee will be somewhere along the line of: Reduce base fee 0.5 PED. Dynamic fee equaling a small percentage (5% or less) on the markup. The "markup" is the difference between the opening bid price or final sale price (if item is sold) and the item TT value. The seller pays the fee based on the opening bid price when the item is put up for auction. The dynamic fee is capped at a maximum of 100 PED.
* Increase the number items a seller in the Auction can put up for sale (undetermined number at this point).
THE ORDER SYSTEM
Why?
* The order system is a great tool for bulk orders of stackable materials, however the amount of things you can place orders on is limited in scope and the way pricing works is false compared to how prices are evaluated in general in Entropia Universe.
* The current system does not work well when dealing with low-price-per-unit items like Lysterium etc.
How!
* Rework the pricing system to use the established "TT+xxx%" method instead.
* Increase the number of items you can place orders on.
* Explain that the order system exists and how it works better.
BIDDING AGENT
Why?
* The current bid system is cumbersome and requires too much manual handling from the participant.
* Vulnerable for technical instability in connection between client computer and server, meaning a bid war may be lost if connection is lost.
* Auction drags on with the five-minute time extension if last bid is placed when less than five minutes remain until end time.
* Higher risk for delayed transaction of bid refunds when outbid and participant wants to continue bidding.
How!
* Add a bid agent (like EBay) which will cater for your bids, allowing for entering a "max bid budget" and automatically paying the smallest price within the budget range.
---
Feel free to make any comments (if constructive ,-) to this, bash or praise, or come with alternative solutions if you feel you have a better way if reaching the goals specified.
Note that the above is for discussions at this point in time. No ETA on any system is determined yet, it is not certain that any of the above mentioned items will ever be implemented and the specification can very well change radically compared to the above info.
MindArk has been known for having a veil of secrecy around the company and around the development of Entropia Universe. This has catered for paranoia and conspiracies in the community and created an unnecessary distance between the developers and the community. I have several ideas for the future which I hope will bring more insight and relax the situation. One of these is to once again enable the Vote booths inworld, hopefully within six months time (the delay is due to having backbone tools for us and be able to use the statistics gathered from the various polls in there, so we actually can use it to make informed decisions). Until then I go for a web based solution here at EntropiaForum.
My ambition is to show what MindArk is thinking about in terms of future developments to Entropia Universe. Equally important is to show why we think the way we think. Some things mentioned will certainly be seen as inherently "good", some "bad", but I trust you will have easier time to understand a change if you also know the motivation behind it.
MindArk always strives to make Entropia Universe as enjoyable as possible for as many as possible. We also have in our vision the need for changes and upgrades to not let Entropia Universe become rigid and old. The development team is still quite small for an operation like Entropia is, and we have many, many ideas for the future and the vision of development stretches several decades ahead. This is old news for the veterans in the community but maybe new info for the newcomers – Entropia, like most MMOG's, have generation shifts continuously, meaning old knowledge is forgotten and old truths become lost.
Enough with the introduction. Here is the first topic – The Auction.
THE AUCTION FEE
Why?
The auction fee needs to be modified to address the following problems:
* The 1 PED fee is generally very low, which makes it extremely hard for participant-owned shops to compete fairly.
* Shops should have advantage over the Auction based on price. The auction should have advantage in the form of easy access from almost everywhere inworld, but at a higher fee.
* A fee of 1 PED makes it hard to sell low profit items.
* For items with high market value the current 1 PED fee is negligible. Participant at Club Neverdie therefore use the auction as a substitute for storage facilities. Some avatars have ‘constant’ auctions at very high buyout just in case someone is crazy enough to pay so much. These auctions make it harder to browse the auction, cause strain to the backbone system, and pollutes any attempt to analyze market prices.
* Many of our users want to put up more than the maximum limit of objects on auction. They feel that they could do more business we would also get more turnover in the auction system.
How!
* A general reduction of land tax for shops (probably at 50% of today's 5 PED, to 2.5 PED).
* An increase in fee for putting items for sale in the auction. The new fee will be somewhere along the line of: Reduce base fee 0.5 PED. Dynamic fee equaling a small percentage (5% or less) on the markup. The "markup" is the difference between the opening bid price or final sale price (if item is sold) and the item TT value. The seller pays the fee based on the opening bid price when the item is put up for auction. The dynamic fee is capped at a maximum of 100 PED.
* Increase the number items a seller in the Auction can put up for sale (undetermined number at this point).
THE ORDER SYSTEM
Why?
* The order system is a great tool for bulk orders of stackable materials, however the amount of things you can place orders on is limited in scope and the way pricing works is false compared to how prices are evaluated in general in Entropia Universe.
* The current system does not work well when dealing with low-price-per-unit items like Lysterium etc.
How!
* Rework the pricing system to use the established "TT+xxx%" method instead.
* Increase the number of items you can place orders on.
* Explain that the order system exists and how it works better.
BIDDING AGENT
Why?
* The current bid system is cumbersome and requires too much manual handling from the participant.
* Vulnerable for technical instability in connection between client computer and server, meaning a bid war may be lost if connection is lost.
* Auction drags on with the five-minute time extension if last bid is placed when less than five minutes remain until end time.
* Higher risk for delayed transaction of bid refunds when outbid and participant wants to continue bidding.
How!
* Add a bid agent (like EBay) which will cater for your bids, allowing for entering a "max bid budget" and automatically paying the smallest price within the budget range.
---
Feel free to make any comments (if constructive ,-) to this, bash or praise, or come with alternative solutions if you feel you have a better way if reaching the goals specified.
Note that the above is for discussions at this point in time. No ETA on any system is determined yet, it is not certain that any of the above mentioned items will ever be implemented and the specification can very well change radically compared to the above info.
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