PE News in media [Local]

a quick and dirty translation...

->Swedens best on-line game is made on Järntorget in Gothenburg.
->One of the most popular game is called Project Entropia.
->It attracts thousands of players each day.

In the newspaper Arbetets old office is the planet Calypso located. On servers belonging to computer game manufacturer Mindark PE are roughly twohundredthousands players colonizing, socialising and finding adeventures in the online game Project Entropia, a virtual world with a real economy. Gothenburg has a tradition as a strong city for development of computergames. Maybe as a result of Chalmers, maybe beacuse computergame developers seek to live near other developers. Once it looked dark in the business when the Swedish falgship Dice which produced Battlefield moved to Stockholm.

One thing we're still are the biggest and alone with in Sweden is online-roleplaying games. In a online-roleplaying game you chose a character and plays whit thousands, sometimes hundred of thousands other players. One fights together or against eachother, one trades or hang out, all in the framework of the game. There are games where you fight against dragons, andr there are games where you are a superhero.

With hundreds of titles released, and ~300 in production online games is maybe the fastest growing trend in computer gaming. Still not many people have heard of Project Entropia, if one except the slightly bizzare news about 22-year old aussie David Storey which bought a $26500 virtual island, a price which found it's way into Guinness book of records as the highest price paid for a virtual item. As opposite of other games where the manufacturers are struggling against sales of items, Project Entropia encourage this.
- Our economic model is completly different from other games, Marco Behrmann tells, responsible for relations against the Project Entropia player community.
- Instead of selling a game in a box, and then playing a monthly fee, this game is free to download. We don't have a monthly fee, but the ingame currency is fixed to the dollar. Plauyers who beeds cach fast in the game can transfer from the real world to the virtual, and we make money on taxes and repair of items.

As the owner of Treasure Island David Storey har the rigth to sell virtual lots to other players which will settle down there, he can also taxate players for beeing adventorus on he's grounds. The investment has now after eight months beginning to break even, and David soon expects to make money of his island. Money that can be converted back from the currency of calypso to real dollars. Maybe this oppertunity to influence the world and taka an active role in it is the most tempting part of online games.
The Vision about an interactive story, where player themself can decide what will happen have never been so close to be true, and opposing to ordinary games, where the creator more or less leave the product after relasing it, the online game creators needs to have an active dialog with their clients.
- The fantastic with this kind of games is that we have a direct link between customer and producer Marco says. We get much active feedback from the player community on our forum, and we try to realize all good ideas we recieves.
 
Chaoz, you got PM with info on where to send those full size pics, then i'll host them. :)
 
Fiona Simmons said:
*Cough*
I missed something ?

I also caught that.
But, to be sure, while "we" in the community often feel neglected I do believe MA is always watching, listening, thinking.... doo-doo-doo-doo There have been numerous things implemented in game throughout the course of my 2+ yrs here that seem to be directly related to suggestions on forum :)
 
Thanks to Marco for the notice and chaoz for the english translation.

I wish I could read the chat that was going on in that screen shot of PE in front of you Marco...maybe it says "Ok, let's program the Thorafoid attack to contain the hidden artifact." ;)
 
w00t. who are the noobs pretending to be working bEHIND marco?

Is one Jan? Is one *gasp* LARS!? =))

If one is Jan, I retract that noob comment. :dunce:

that picture of the berycled overwhelming a corn is bADASSS! howcome i've never seen it ingame? =( Can I be the first to loot one? :laugh:
 
The fantastic with this kind of games is that we have a direct link between customer and producer Marco says.

We get much active feedback from the player community on our forum, and we try to realize all good ideas we recieves.

I'm not usually one to obsessively complain, but ... ahh.. well... while the majority of this article was interesting, I found these last two points to be rather odd and somewhat misleading.

1) There is no MA PE forum. MA shut it down, and has not re-started it. Recent comments suggest they have no interest in restarting it. How old is this article?

2) I have played several MMROPGs, and PE has BY FAR the lowest level of designer to player communication I have seen in a game like this.

This post is not intended as a insult to Marco or MA, only a reflection of what I have experienced in my several years of playing.

we make money on taxes and repair of items.

MA makes money on taxes? Does that mean that all non player-owned lands are taxed? Or is there a global tax? Or are we talking about auction tax? Interesting.
 
truantduck said:
This post is not intended as a insult to Marco or MA, only a reflection of what I have experienced in my several years of playing.

Maybe it is like with other newspapers and reporters?
Not everything that is written in the newspaper is 100% correct information. :wise:
I guess Marco needs to explain this and what he told to the reporter.

/Kjetil :cool:
 
Also, we must consider that this is an interpretation so I wouldn't rely too heavily on taking the word literally.

DD
:evilking:
 
Kjetil said:
Maybe it is like with other newspapers and reporters?
Not everything that is written in the newspaper is 100% correct information. :wise:
I guess Marco needs to explain this and what he told to the reporter.

/Kjetil :cool:


I blame the reporter. ,-)

Maybe the novel concept of PE was a bit to much to grasp at once. Participant-owned land areas have taxes. MA does not have any taxes. I said we (MA) used various means of digital communication with the community, such as forums, email, support section, etc. This was truncated into " our forum".
 
Marco|MindArk said:
I blame the reporter. ,-)

Maybe the novel concept of PE was a bit to much to grasp at once. Participant-owned land areas have taxes. MA does not have any taxes. I said we (MA) used various means of digital communication with the community, such as forums, email, support section, etc. This was truncated into " our forum".

I guess this means that we will have to believe you :). I liked the article at least, more exposure yields more people :wise: .

Keep up the good work.
 
Marco|MindArk said:
I blame the reporter. ,-)

Maybe the novel concept of PE was a bit to much to grasp at once. Participant-owned land areas have taxes. MA does not have any taxes. I said we (MA) used various means of digital communication with the community, such as forums, email, support section, etc. This was truncated into " our forum".

Are some people really shocked that a newspaper would make things up to beef up thier article. Newspapers will always embelish the facts and cut corners. I don't think anyone would want to actually read how MA communicate, it was just easier for the writer to say what he said without going to great lengths to explain things.

On the point of whether its the greatest MMORPG. Well to be honest, if it was'nt, wouldnt we all be playing something else. I for one, like many here, have played a good few, and PE beats em all hands down. I'm in with Hooters the exposure is great for all players, well apart from the few that 'don't like no strangers round ere'.

Note to Marco: Smile next time :D (me thinks Marco unhappy after having to return to work from his hols).
 
Svetlana said:
Thx Chaoz for posting...

Now, some1 get their arses on it and translate into English pls :laugh:

What happed to your swedish Svet ? :D
 
Thanks to Marco for the notice and chaoz for pics and translation

In general a good article(both in Swedish and English) and its great to see some PR for the game!
Things like this will probably bring in some new gamers, whitch is good for us all :wise:
 
yay for PR, now let's hope for noob invasion so sweatprices get decent again :)
 
Prodiq said:
yay for PR, now let's hope for noob invasion so sweatprices get decent again :)


yesterday i saw someone buying sweat ofr 3.6 pec a bottle...THATS INSANE


we need a shitload of newbie's who go sweat fuga and chirpy an the like
 
I was troubled when I saw people offering sweat for 3 pec per bottle, but now theres people shouting out that they're BUYING sweat at 3.6-3.7 pec per bottle... wow.

I'm just thinking of sweathogs now.... Did they keep some of their sweat stockpile, and can now slowly sell off that 100k bottles that was rumoured to be in their possession at a very high price??

I have 2 brothers who both stopped playing a little while ago... neither have reached their sweat cap.... so perhaps I'll persuade them to log in for me so I can do some sweating....
 
Prodiq said:
yay for PR, now let's hope for noob invasion so sweatprices get decent again :)

Thats what I am talking about! Lets hit the east asia, india and chinese markets and get some new players. BUYING Sweat 1.1 @ TP

Some radio station in Australia had a competition. The listener who could get the best publicity won tickets to a concert. So people were running nude on the rugby field with the stations name on thier back side for publicity.

I am not saying that we all run nude through town with PE written on each a bum cheek, but I think some of us players are in great places to also publicise PE and help get more players interested.

PE needs as much publicity as it can get. I am one of the biggest fans and love the game. MA does some stupid things and lacks a good dialogue with the players but that is no reason to fault them over a few minor things in an article. Grats on getting a mention in the media. Lets hope you can do it bigger and better next time and some players even get some publicity for PE.
 
Prodiq said:
yay for PR, now let's hope for noob invasion so sweatprices get decent again :)

NO noob invasion please. Ma servers are too weak for that (and we all want to keep those animated dancing trees right?)
We will ctd 300 times a day instead of todays 100 times a day
 
Natasza said:
NO noob invasion please. Ma servers are too weak for that (and we all want to keep those animated dancing trees right?)
We will ctd 300 times a day instead of todays 100 times a day

I just turned the wind off and it stopped those stupid trees ;)
 
Natasza said:
NO noob invasion please. Ma servers are too weak for that (and we all want to keep those animated dancing trees right?)
We will ctd 300 times a day instead of todays 100 times a day



I agree....Pheonix is unbearable with just a few noobs, cant imagine how bad it would get with all Asia joining in. But something does have to be done about the sweat prices and/or mind force costs.

Az
 
Marco|MindArk said:
I blame the reporter. ,-)

Why? We all know PE has more then 200 000 active users and that the picture on the right is a scene from Treasure Island :wise:


Edit: TI doesn't even has corn's and bery's in the first place, especially not that nice ones :eek:
 
Konve said:
Why? We all know PE has more then 200 000 active users and that the picture on the right is a scene from Treasure Island :wise:


Edit: TI doesn't even has corn's and bery's in the first place, especially not that nice ones :eek:

euh...PE doesn't have 200k active users, I don't think even marco would say that ;)

70% of all created accounts are inactive after a month, do the maths and you'll see we have a lot less, and there's lots more who quit after more than a month...
 
Konve said:
Why? We all know PE has more then 200 000 active users and that the picture on the right is a scene from Treasure Island :wise:


Edit: TI doesn't even has corn's and bery's in the first place, especially not that nice ones :eek:

thats right, there is 200k avatars, but someone forgot to mention that 190k of them are sweating avatars and some of them are also used as scammer avatars, wich is perfectly allowed cos no one gets banned for having 10 sweating avatars
 
Bring on the noobs. The more the better. To say or think otherwise is a somewhat selfish position that doesn't take into account the big picture, and health of the game.

Also, I was not taking the article literally, I was taking from it the basic message, which was a message that was misleading because PE has such a severe lack of communication between designers and players when compared to other MMORPGs.
 
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