How to Get more People to play this game? First Impressions from heavy gamer.

RickEngland said:

Good read this thread.


The biggest question I ask myself these days is; what is the value of reward worth for the deposit made? You make a £100 depo they switch you on for 2 weeks solid fun at least. Why all this walking on egg shells with multiple losing streak. What['s that all about.



Rick

Click to expand...

Thats the number one change they can make now. There are a lot of other changes people talked about that would be great, but nothing - carries more power than $$$$$$!
What keeps me coming back besides other things is that this is a RCE game. Lately the money I spend FLIES out the door. I don't do things in my life that seem like a waste of money. That's what this usually feels like. Not - "oh that was awesome," it is more like "oh god I just wasted another $100 on this game." I feel like I am walking on egg shells the whole time after I deposit. I just feel like "how soon will I loose all of this."
MA tells me to stop trying to "make a profit" LOL that is the LAST thing from my mind. All I want to do is play at my level and hunt hard for more than 2 days with my last huge deposit. Hundreds of dollars a month for a computer game is not a good model. I've been playing Fallout NV, Minecraft, and Lord of the Rings online again a lot lately. I can find myself having just as much or more fun and guess what ... I either spend ZERO a month, or I spent 9.99.
MA has said multiple times in the past they are striving to increase returns by having advertising and more players come in. I haven't seen much of the changes -only things were small (which are GOOD) like no ammo used when shooting dead air, etc. That has saved us some PECS now save us some PEDS.

I love this game. Everyone I play with loves it. Probably wouldn't be reading this tread and writing in the forum if you didn't. The only thing that stops people I know from playing is their returns. Only real complaint I hear is loot is bad. No one says ,oh it's boring or man these graphics are bad etc. Some bugs are noted, but like any good PC gamer we deal with it.
Anyhow, I'm going to play some Fallout now!

Neil Stockton said:

As someone who's watched a lot of newer players progress from zero up, I don't like the idea of new players getting uber loots off small mobs or normal unamped mining. I have watched quite a few get an uber loot after only a couple days of playing and they usually come away from the HOF with the mindset that the game is all about hunting for the next biggest HOF (go to amped foma mining or buy the biggest old school gun they can find to hunt big mobs) and of course they lose it all and rage quit.

Of course, old players can hunt small mobs too and I think it's fine if they could get an uber loot off of them but then you can't limit it only to experienced players. So... I think mellowing out the loot on smaller mobs/unamped mining is a good thing.

Click to expand...

I have to agree with some of the other posts that there is nothing wrong with a noob getting a big HOF. Unlike the seasoned player who will most likely manage the loot, the noob will just shoot it up as fast as he can to get another one. I got a 695 ped HOF in the first few months and needless to say that hooked me pretty good. It was probably a good 6 months before I even got a plain 50 ped global and I am afraid to even think about how many USD I have spent since that time. This is not a slam just a difference of opinion

Guarana said:

Why is giving newbie players a chance on looting the big one a bad thing? Is it the lottery companies fault that I bought a 1 dollar scratch ticket and won 10 000 $? Then bought 10k scratch tickets and lost it all? Thats called greed. And is the players fault for gambling it.

If a newcomer comes into the game game and gets a 5k foul, why is it bad? Player would deff tell other people about the game. And it would increase hunting on low lvl mobs. And it would encourage investing into better UL items. (Old soc member looted a 9k foul young just month after playing)

It's basicly as saying that people who depo should get better returns rather than people managing to play non depo. As they give more to the game rather than non depo players. Don't seem fair that a non depo player can loot a 10k mob when a player depoing 1k USD gets nothing. Right?

Click to expand...

Don't worry. A Foul can't loot a uber like that anymore!

Last Foul uber was on the 08 Oct 2012 !!! That was 560 days ago, more precisely before all the low HP mobs getting capped on January 2013!

Now if you want to HOF try to hunt something with 20x more HP.


What for itself remove hope for all the low and medium low hunters. And if hope is removed why should them continue to deposit? Let's all be resselers and see the game as a boring work! That's the plan now!

Suddenly the game become so BORING!!!

Guarana said:

Why is giving newbie players a chance on looting the big one a bad thing? Is it the lottery companies fault that I bought a 1 dollar scratch ticket and won 10 000 $? Then bought 10k scratch tickets and lost it all? Thats called greed. And is the players fault for gambling it.

If a newcomer comes into the game game and gets a 5k foul, why is it bad? Player would deff tell other people about the game. And it would increase hunting on low lvl mobs. And it would encourage investing into better UL items. (Old soc member looted a 9k foul young just month after playing)

It's basicly as saying that people who depo should get better returns rather than people managing to play non depo. As they give more to the game rather than non depo players. Don't seem fair that a non depo player can loot a 10k mob when a player depoing 1k USD gets nothing. Right?

Click to expand...

I understood MA indicated they had considerably lowered the cost for new starters. That means older players are already subsidising the cost of new players (when we had it much harder at the start). So are you suggesting new starters get cheaper play and equal chance of all the good loots as well?

All cool if they pay of course.

Rick

I think the reason it's cheap for new starters is because the weapons you loot off punies are extremely good and eco, plus because they are so low HP, the volatility isn't an issue because you can kill many with 20ped ammo, so you kill enough to almost always hit 95% return TT

Volatility scales with HP - More chance to win big but more chance to lose big

That's not my words, Kim said that recently

If you click a high cost BP, how many clicks do you feel safe with? That's the same amount of mobs you should kill on a hunt it's same in principle. 1k 2k?

As far as noob hofs etc, I think the system should be balanced and equal with no exceptions or caps or any artificial tampering, that's more important. It's hard to cope with winners and losers but that's just the system.

My opinion of the game is that to save it or rather, allow it to grow, they need to redo the loot system, but I don't think the current MA have the will or ability to do that.

cheers

Kitch said:

I think the reason it's cheap for new starters is because the weapons you loot off punies are extremely good and eco, plus because they are so low HP, the volatility isn't an issue because you can kill many with 20ped ammo, so you kill enough to almost always hit 95% return TT

Volatility scales with HP - More chance to win big but more chance to lose big

That's not my words, Kim said that recently

If you click a high cost BP, how many clicks do you feel safe with? That's the same amount of mobs you should kill on a hunt it's same in principle. 1k 2k?

As far as noob hofs etc, I think the system should be balanced and equal with no exceptions or caps or any artificial tampering, that's more important. It's hard to cope with winners and losers but that's just the system.

My opinion of the game is that to save it or rather, allow it to grow, they need to redo the loot system, but I don't think the current MA have the will or ability to do that.

cheers

Click to expand...

I think MA has the ability but not the will.

Talking about the punys I have an S.I. scorpion and once in a while I like to go around PA for the punys. 10 ped lasts about an hour and it is not stop action

The nerfing of the skill gains over the years is the biggest factor to my diminished play.
I went from 10 - 12 hrs a day at one point to 10-12hrs a month if that much.

With skills actually considered loot now I see the whys.

We need an option checkbox that would not allow any skills earned while it is checked to be sold.
With this option skill gains should be at least 10x in my opinion.
This would get me back to more play and thus more deposits.

James

RickEngland said:

I understood MA indicated they had considerably lowered the cost for new starters. That means older players are already subsidising the cost of new players (when we had it much harder at the start). So are you suggesting new starters get cheaper play and equal chance of all the good loots as well?

All cool if they pay of course.

Rick

Click to expand...

I don't think we are subsidising new players. Lower cost comes more from steady looting punies and the new, low tt, higher ammo weapons, which also max at very low levels. It used to be olao maxed at 5.5, and that was the best you had with still terrbile eco for most of those 5 levels. There are now much better options, and weapons that max at 0.5, 1, 2, 3 etc levels and give the option of having decent eco from start.

jcfuller said:

The nerfing of the skill gains over the years is the biggest factor to my diminished play.
I went from 10 - 12 hrs a day at one point to 10-12hrs a month if that much.

With skills actually considered loot now I see the whys.

We need an option checkbox that would not allow any skills earned while it is checked to be sold.
With this option skill gains should be at least 10x in my opinion.
This would get me back to more play and thus more deposits.

James

Click to expand...

I play now for 6 years and the game was never easy to progress! You will never found such a hard skilling game out there as this. My last unlock was commando last year. If I say this to some friends at first they don't believe.

But that is not the main problem I think. The thing now it that they removed a lot of hopes from the players. Mobs that used to drop a lot of uber loots, now it passes weeks or even months without anything relevant from them.

With the hope to remove the no looters (they still happening) Mindark capped almost every thing that low and medium low players hunt, craft and mine.


If you want to have fun now you need to hunt feffox, proterons, levias or event mobs with huge HP like mulmun. Or to click costly BPs (40-50ped click) or then go to FOMA with level 10 or higher!

Then you say, but loot now is more stable! My ass! In the 6 months I lost way more than 700 USD. C'mon! I didn't deposited so much in a game and played so hard up to level 72, to now don't have any fun and loss my ass like a newbie!

Robert Saint said:

IDEAS for Building the Player Base.
1) Build a much bigger META game inside this one with non-trade items attached only to the character when earned. Allow players to do things in game that doesn't require RL cash in order to earn world tokens to buy these items from special vendors. They can do missions that already exist or just find token while exploring. Not saying change the current eco system, but it seems this game can't sustain a large player base unless they add more Free to play content.

Click to expand...

The problem with this is that it will indeed increase the player base, but it will be players who pay nothing. They do bring pressure on the servers, and create costs though. And these costs have to be covered by revenues. And as some paying players will move to free...it will be more cost paid by fewer members...

2) Make it easier to get to other planets, asteroids with jump gates. Sure charge 2 PED or something, but space seems seriously lacking compared to games like EVE (don't like mentioning other games, but it does exist). It takes forever to travel and discourages visiting other places.

Click to expand...

Yes, space is very much lacking. And travelling between planets is ridiculous. However, I believe they put it in to create an environment where individual planets have a bit of their own "playerbase". Taking it away might hurt their investments, and could even be a breach of contract. Oh, for the record: I hate having to pay for "pixeltravel".

The way I see it = Getting more people to log consistently, means more shoppers when they fall in love with the game and want to do higher end content (real game stuff). As it is, it's obvious why the player base seems to have shrunk since I last played a year ago. Also, I want to help other publishers, but it's difficult to stay on another planet long due to the lack of market on these areas, so a jump gate would help = you could even make it so it is limited on the items that can fit through it, so as to not make import.export too easy.

Best wishes for this game, I will play it until Star Citizen gets released.

Click to expand...

Lol, and you hated mentioning other games? Sure you aren't just advertising? I am not sure about the conversion rate on free players here in all honesty. Already, with the introduction of the newbie areas, stuff has gotten a lot easier and cheaper for newbies, but I don't get the feeling more stick around than in the old days.

We need more Free to Play players.

Click to expand...

We just need more players

I dont feel Newcommers have ever had it more privelidged then they have it now. A guy made a thread about how start in EU, cant remember the link, and it had instruction how to do all the good starter missions on Caly and in the end u would have 50 ped.
There are instances now only avaible to players below a specified lvl.
Tons of mobs to hunt eco even for players with lvl 0-5.
Disciples now get a really nice armor as reward when graduating.

And Propably tons of other Things i forgot.

I dont remember any of the above being availeble when i started.

silas said:

There are instances now only avaible to players below a specified lvl.

Click to expand...

I believe there are MISSIONS now only avaible to players below a specified lvl. INSTANCES are free for all.

I agree with some people that new players have it easy.

But I noticed, in my own experience that its the non depo people who leave. I think it's probably like 5-10% retention rate, probably worse actually. Obviously that is just a stat I pulled from my ass crack based on my own experience.

Fuck the non depo players anyway, if they dont depo within 3 months of joining then no point trying to cling on to them. If they can make it like that then good for them, but if all they do is sponge then fuck em?!

Kitch said:

I agree with some people that new players have it easy.

But I noticed, in my own experience that its the non depo people who leave. I think it's probably like 5-10% retention rate, probably worse actually. Obviously that is just a stat I pulled from my ass crack based on my own experience.

Fuck the non depo players anyway, if they dont depo within 3 months of joining then no point trying to cling on to them. If they can make it like that then good for them, but if all they do is sponge then fuck em?!

Click to expand...

Do pardon me, but I beg to differ.

Imo, all this antagonizing of non-depoers is really quite unnecessary.

Why? Because they are every bit as good a consumer as just the other fellow depoer out there. (Notice the bold on the consumer part)

So long as they get their peds from "somewhere", "somehow" and by "some means", they are still spending peds to buy stuff that other players within EU are selling and are thus consuming them...not to mention enabling the movement/flow of goods in between the Entropians. Get my logic here?

If you throw out those non-depoers, you get that much less people helping to consume the goods made, be it crafted armors, weapons, or purchasing of stuff to craft...etc.

However, that's on the premise that we've having a functional economy that is. But we aren't having one right now, are we?

sawachika said:

Do pardon me, but I beg to differ.

Imo, all this antagonizing of non-depoers is really quite unnecessary.

Why? Because they are every bit as good a consumer as just the other fellow depoer out there. (Notice the bold on the consumer part)

So long as they get their peds from "somewhere", "somehow" and by "some means", they are still spending peds to buy stuff that other players within EU are selling and are thus consuming them...not to mention enabling the movement/flow of goods in between the Entropians. Get my logic here?

If you throw out those non-depoers, you get that much less people helping to consume the goods made, be it crafted armors, weapons, or purchasing of stuff to craft...etc.

However, that's on the premise that we've having a functional economy that is. But we aren't having one right now, are we?

Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to be anti non depoers.. And I agree with everything you just said.

Really my point is I think MA have done enough for them as it is, and I don't think that that is a particularly important group to focus on, they will allways be there, doing their thing, buying items and contributing as you say..

So I don't hate them, just think it's more important to focus on the bedrock of Mid-Up hunters/miners/crafters who a cycling the peds.. And therefore the only way to make the game work for them is to fix the damn loot system and loot tables/bp's etc

p.s. actually my favorite disciples are non depoers because of all the great mission options on calypso for them.
Only problem is they hardly ever stick around for more than a month

sawachika said:

Do pardon me, but I beg to differ.

Imo, all this antagonizing of non-depoers is really quite unnecessary.

Why? Because they are every bit as good a consumer as just the other fellow depoer out there. (Notice the bold on the consumer part)

So long as they get their peds from "somewhere", "somehow" and by "some means", they are still spending peds to buy stuff that other players within EU are selling and are thus consuming them...not to mention enabling the movement/flow of goods in between the Entropians. Get my logic here?

If you throw out those non-depoers, you get that much less people helping to consume the goods made, be it crafted armors, weapons, or purchasing of stuff to craft...etc.

However, that's on the premise that we've having a functional economy that is. But we aren't having one right now, are we?

Click to expand...

I tend to agree. I think that it is possible get peds without depoing but I think it is quite a task. I also think it is definitely easer now than when I started when the only ways to get ped was sweating or walking around very slowly and hope to find stones or fruit.

Robert Saint said:

I am sort of new overall here, but not gaming, I started a year ago for a month, quit and came back just a week ago, since my 11 year old wanted to play again.

I'm a big game player, Eve mostly, but can't wait for Star Citizen to come out.

I am torn on this game, and thought to throw a thread to see what the real story is for this game

We need more Free to Play players.

Click to expand...

Sorry ignored a lot of what you said, not that I didn't read it. But the gist is you feel isolated and generally ignored by the game. And why would I want a child of mine to play this isolated and punishing game over another thatis coming out?

I have few words to disagree with you here, EU seems to be stuck in 2004 and forgets that MMORPG is a new class of marketable products. Seems like they spent 10 yrs in a room smoking weed and doing high-fives to me. The world moves on.

I would suggest you stick with us for two reasons.

1.1 Our community of players is second to none. We have learnt over these years to come together as ma global community like none other.

1,2 What you are going into is a sham example of true online games. At the moment your child WILL be fucked up by all that crap and not learn a thing about the world. In EU she gets to see what the world looks like.

As much as we complain. And fight for improvement.

Try too sell your child a dream ( which we have ) instead of showing them a nightmare.

sawachika said:

So long as they get their peds from "somewhere", "somehow" and by "some means", they are still spending peds to buy stuff that other players within EU are selling and are thus consuming them...not to mention enabling the movement/flow of goods in between the Entropians. Get my logic here?

Click to expand...

You forgot to mention the Group of players who play purely for profit. The most apparent ones, the people around auctioneer, in OJs, with 1:ish attributes, and who have a bid on pretty much Everything that's posted. And the ones that are proud they've never deposited (or deposited 5 years ago) and are mad because their five digit withdrawal is two Days late.

The kind of people who wants *everyone else* to be consumers (of their items).

If you Think of it it's pretty obvious that, in a longer run, all markup comes from depositors. (With "comes from" I mean where the actual PED comes from; not the markup claimed at sells).

sawachika said:

Do pardon me, but I beg to differ.

Imo, all this antagonizing of non-depoers is really quite unnecessary.

Why? Because they are every bit as good a consumer as just the other fellow depoer out there. (Notice the bold on the consumer part)

So long as they get their peds from "somewhere", "somehow" and by "some means", they are still spending peds to buy stuff that other players within EU are selling and are thus consuming them...not to mention enabling the movement/flow of goods in between the Entropians. Get my logic here?

If you throw out those non-depoers, you get that much less people helping to consume the goods made, be it crafted armors, weapons, or purchasing of stuff to craft...etc.

However, that's on the premise that we've having a functional economy that is. But we aren't having one right now, are we?

Click to expand...

Non-depo are essential to the game, but only to a certain value. As soon as the ratio depo/non-depo is too heavy towards the non-depo, we will ALL have a big problem. And the depo will be feeling hurt most, as they pay "good money" for it. If they don't get value, they leave.

So as long as the infrastructure cannot deal with it, we need depo-in players. A blind focus on getting F2P and then hoping they will magicly start depositing for a game which is laggy (due to all the nondepo) and buggy... is naive to say the least.

Hi,

Wollongong said:

Non-depo are essential to the game, but only to a certain value. As soon as the ratio depo/non-depo is too heavy towards the non-depo, we will ALL have a big problem. And the depo will be feeling hurt most, as they pay "good money" for it. If they don't get value, they leave. [...]

Click to expand...

A story from the past:

Back in the good old days, when Port Atlantis was this much populated that MA had to change the layout (marketplace walled in with a separate local chat), there was quite plenty of "free players" that, besides sweating, earned a few PEC with "entry-level-trading".
Means, they had sweated until they had a few PED (or had done a low deposit), and then stood there for hours buying stuff: Ores, hunting loot, such things. In small amounts. For low prices, but still above TT.
They collected a bit of stuff, sold to "higher traders" or to a crafter (if they were good in the job), and thus made a PED or three a day.

This was a very comfortable situation, for little hunting/ mining nOObs like me - easy to sell small quantities of loot, and, after I started crafting, easy to barter some loot for the 20 Lyst I needed
There was a lot of them back than, and it was a place burstling of fun & life. All were chatting, dancing at the music box, sliding around the floor, and friendships were made.

Often I went sweating with some of these, or we did some little team hunts - after all, I was the (depositing) mighty hunter in shiny Goblin armor, with not one but even 2 (!) axes 2x0! I know for sure that at least 2 of them are still playing today, and have surpassed me by far in skills and gear ;-)

The moral of the story:

There was this many free players at this time that the central trading point often was just a slide-show. But we got used to it, and enjoyed it. The world was full of people, and we had fun together.
I agree that there needs to be a certain relation between depositors and not-depositors (or rare-depositors ...) to keep things going - but I see the not-/ rare-depositors as an important part of the universe. Even if they only help to add flavor to a place.

Todays Port Atlantis isn't comparable at all anymore. It's a wasteland of shiny architecture, else a ghost town nearly. Same for the other cities, on Calypso or elsewhere. May be that just people sharing my on-line times have left, but I feel a big pain seeing it. I know there was better times!

All the cool stuff recently done for "new player experience", the gifts, the missions, whatever, doesn't balance the massive loss in real new player experience we suffered due to changed loots, increased prices for gaming/ h, and the broken-down sweat market. Well, only the old players know how it was back then ...

Back in '05, it took me maybe 2 months to start depositing seriously. Today, I'd be gone for good by this time, for sure.
Back then, I joined a living virtual world, filled with nice and not-so-nice people. Now, I'm really thinking each time if I should log in, do my "kill a gigazillion of [insert mob here]" mission, or if I better should read the forum first - and usually another day w/o EU starts here.
Back then, PE was a real virtual world. Today, EU is a virtual desert.

EU has become the gambling casino for few big spenders. Even dangerous mobs like Atrax Old Alpha will not loot anything of interest anymore - and this will be dangerous mobs for a lot of people for quite a lot of time, it took me years to kill my first!
After the nOOb areas new players are landing in a harsh world - nobody is interested in their sweat (I sometimes buy for charity, not that I'd need it ...), any newbie hunt will end with frustrating results, no chance anymore for looting anything valuable.

The constructive part:

• Sweat needs to have more uses again. To prevent abuse, maybe add a sweat skill cap again.
  Sweating for 3h should make it possible to do a small 1h hunt on Punys. Without having to wait 2 days until some charity buyer donates you the money ...
  .
• It might be controversial, but restricting the first gift vehicles to 1h of in game use, and then requiring certain attributes to use others. Adventure, TP runs, fun, excitement again, anyone in with me?
  .
• Every mob should, rarely, be able to loot gear usable to kill the next bigger one, and every even tiny mob should loot something with good MU, rarely. New players need a goal, incentives, goodies!
  Nothing more frustrating than knowing that your fraggled anyways, until you can start to hunt the big phat sissies.
  .
• Mob loot should be determined more by the damage that a mob dishes out, less by mob HP/ Regen. Stupidly whacking on huge HP monsters while watching TV on the other screen isn't what defines a good game ...

Maybe we'd get some more participants again, this way. But I know, it's a dream.

Have fun!

you talk to much sense, fully agree.

To Xranda, yes many good ideas. I have suggested some of them in the past, like the sweating, and it was met with disdain with cries of "Oh no that would ruin the economics of the game". Everything like this, an idea that would make the noobs life a little easier, is met in the same way. As if a few thousand ped infusion would be that bad. No matter how you get your ped without depoing it is going to take a long, long time to get anywhere.

Xandra said:

Todays Port Atlantis isn't comparable at all anymore. It's a wasteland of shiny architecture, else a ghost town nearly. Same for the other cities, on Calypso or elsewhere. May be that just people sharing my on-line times have left, but I feel a big pain seeing it. I know there was better times!

Click to expand...

The thing that wrecked port atlantis was all that moving-around of beginner arrival areas, and I got the feeling that each time beginner area (camp Phoenix -> swet camp -> VU10 sweat camp -> South sweat camp -> Camp Icarus -> Cape Corinth), you lose a bit on the people on the way (when it comes to create a social critical mass).

Rocktropia did a bit of that to, when they first created "noobs noobs noobs", and later "club neverdie" building. But lately, they moved the "club neverdie"-building Close to the trade hub of the planet (City of Dreams/Lagoon).

The mistake MA made in VU10, was that they put Sweat Camp in same server area as Port Atlantis, so when there was problem with Port Atlantis server beginners were shuffled around. (Before vu10, though they were Close, there was a server border between). Now with cape corinth area the overloaded server problem is solved, but now I don't have a clue if beginners ever visit the new-old "Camp Icarus".

As for street traders, I've Always respected those. Real traders who spend time interacting with other players and doing p2p trades. The people I call "resellers" are those who only hang around auction all day long.

Xandra said:

[*]Sweat needs to have more uses again. To prevent abuse, maybe add a sweat skill cap again.

Click to expand...

I don't want the skill cap back as it was. Sometimes it can be fun to join the sweaters and sweat a bit, or if you want to kill off an ambu check if it's dry.

maybe one solution is to gradually lower sweat, or have a sweat cap with the mk1 tool, and if you want to continue sweating, you need to have a mk2 tool with a (small) cost attached. Maybe have bigger sweat Tools that doesn't give more sweat, but more specific sweat gathering skills. Maybe have a deluxe sweating tool, that consumes one oldschool ME per successful pull, but that would give an opportunity to skill mindforce (give better skills than the "free" Tools). (In the bigger Picture, that tool will give more sweat than consumed ME, which could be handy if there aren't many sweaters around, but on the other hand will put a base-price on sweat). Another option would be that you need "focus charges" to be able to sweat once you're above the sweat cap.

An apparent problem, that might keep sweat prices down, could be (just a guess) "afk sweaters". Maybe there should be some mechanism that would make it needed to perform some sort of interaction once a certain limit is reached. Maybe something that if you carry more than 500 units of sweat you can't sweat - until you've visited storage. Something like that would set a limit to for how long time someone could be sweating "afk".

There are new things that consume sweat though: Hussk spawning (if only MA could drop enough blood samples), and (though I know some people don't like them) the portable repair and trade terminal. Maybe MA would also create a portable auction terminal that could be used to browse the auctions in locations where there is no auctioneer (for instance in space, or if you're hunting and you need to check for a specific item).

But, to really get in new players and make them stick the cost of playing should be lowered. For real. I mean, when a brand new player joins today and he asks what he should buy for his first hunts, I've Heard an advice to buy an a101 amp. It's an item that nowdays COSTs more than 100 ped and pretty much is reseller food. What's sad with a101 amps is that I Heard they drop from ambus... instead, they should drop from mobs that players are able to kill using the weapon it's used for (ie opalo); bercs, snables or whatever.

And Another thing, when I joined, ESIs were said to drop from all mobs. Maybe it's time to make it that way again. Maybe not let 100 ped ESI drop from punies, but once in a while let a 12.5-ped one drop from all mobs (ie daikiba, exosaur etc). Back in the old Days I had a theory that a player looted an ESI once he had gained skill enough to fill one... and that pretty much an ESI was a "loan voucher" claimed now, that would be repaid the day you wanted to sell the skills.

I have to say though that with Gateway/Thule and the weapons that came with it made the fun come back a bit. Though it was (L) weapons, you had a good chance to loot decent weapons, and the low TT of them doesn't suck out PEDs from the rest of the loot.

What I wonder about a bit is the olschool armor drops how they work nowdays (pixie, goblin and such).

Oh, and one thing that could be better: Beginner level balancing, in terms of eco, between planets. Now beginners on calypso are adivced to use weapons that originates on arkadia (or was it cyrene?) and faps from Toulan. A solution to this that would be nice is that MA creates a hadeshiem style weapon trader, let that weapon trader sell opalo class weapons, and then there is a new generation of weapons in trade terminals which are comparable to the "modern weapons" in eco. (I wouldn't want opalo to be completely unavailible though.)

aia said:

I don't want the skill cap back as it was.

Click to expand...

Agreed. It was a disaster, and reintroducing it won't make it any better.

aia said:

maybe one solution is to gradually lower sweat, or have a sweat cap with the mk1 tool, and if you want to continue sweating, you need to have a mk2 tool with a (small) cost attached. Maybe have bigger sweat Tools that doesn't give more sweat, but more specific sweat gathering skills. Maybe have a deluxe sweating tool, ...

Click to expand...

I've been thinking along the same lines myself, but I fear MA would fuck it up given the chance (not unheard of), why I haven't voiced my ideas.

Now that they are in the open, one thing I've been trying to carefully consider is that _possibly_ higher SG-level than mob lvl would reduce amount of sweat you get per time unit. Unfortunately, as MA are in love with 1/log, log and even n^2, combined with their complete inability to run simulations of their (often disastrous) decision, I fear this could go to hell in a handbasket in a millisecond.

But properly considered (and recognizing that "mod level" is completely fucked up, why a new "mob level" measurement will have to be used). I think this could work. Especially if you add something like "No matter your level, you still have x hour(s) sweating per month/week at whatever mob you like". that way you can still introduce newcomers to e.g. Nea's, and sweat with them for a while.

Anyway, just added a small part of my ideas. I can only hope MA doesn't take the worst parts and implement them, and then flip us the birdy.

aia said:

An apparent problem, that might keep sweat prices down, could be (just a guess) "afk sweaters".

Click to expand...

That's probably highly down to definition.

I remember when we swunted ambu back in VU10 (early 2010 IIRC), and generally I was (and many with me I believe) "AFK" in the sense I didn't have the EU window in focus. I did however have the chat window output always visible, even when I read slashdot, why I could switch back to EU within a second and start spending money on shooting the mob.

MA screwed up ambu (as I'm sure Akoz can testify) by making them heit more often and harder. That they made all of Nea's PvP was just the ultimate insult and the death-sentence. Thank you and good bye.

aia said:

But, to really get in new players and make them stick the cost of playing should be lowered.

Click to expand...

Here we have the real problem. MA have always preferred the whales (obviously, as they bring the most money), while not having a frickin' clue about the other customer profiles.

Effectively everything MA does and has ever done is targeted towards "whales" (there are tiny exceptions, but... get real).

To get more money flowing they need more peeps. To get more peeps, they need an environment attracting more peeps - and keeping them long enough that they deposit!

MA has failed miserably (and continues to fail) in this area. Seriously, they are so daft they don't even run simulations on the impact of their changes (if they had run simulations, the ones responsible would be... less active IRL by now).

Rounding off, item drops and everything else suffers from EU being "RCE". If you do something where snables drops anything with even the slightest possibility of profit, it's a given everyone will camp snables, be you level 1 or level 150 (as if. har, har). MA has created a monster, and painted itself into so many corners it's not even funny. There IS a way out, but JWT&co (including "Kim Ill Sung") are so blinded by their own superiority they rather buy German castles than developing the business model for EU that's actually sustainable (the current model is proven to be unsustainable).


(I bet JC will come down on this post now, claiming I'm overly pessimistic or whatever, and not only delete the post but ban me from posting for 4 weeks+, so read it while you have the chance)

tamlin said:

If you do something where snables drops anything with even the slightest possibility of profit, it's a given everyone will camp snables, be you level 1 or level 150 (as if. har, har).

Click to expand...

Back in the old Days, snables occasionally dropped blue (and yellow?) paint, Worth some 300%. And hair gel. Theoretically, snables should be able to drop pixie thigguards.

Not a profit machine; but sabakumas dropped orange paint.

Xandra said:

Hi,



A story from the past:

Back in the good old days, when Port Atlantis was this much populated that MA had to change the layout (marketplace walled in with a separate local chat), there was quite plenty of "free players" that, besides sweating, earned a few PEC with "entry-level-trading".
Means, they had sweated until they had a few PED (or had done a low deposit), and then stood there for hours buying stuff: Ores, hunting loot, such things. In small amounts. For low prices, but still above TT.
They collected a bit of stuff, sold to "higher traders" or to a crafter (if they were good in the job), and thus made a PED or three a day.

This was a very comfortable situation, for little hunting/ mining nOObs like me - easy to sell small quantities of loot, and, after I started crafting, easy to barter some loot for the 20 Lyst I needed
There was a lot of them back than, and it was a place burstling of fun & life. All were chatting, dancing at the music box, sliding around the floor, and friendships were made.

Often I went sweating with some of these, or we did some little team hunts - after all, I was the (depositing) mighty hunter in shiny Goblin armor, with not one but even 2 (!) axes 2x0! I know for sure that at least 2 of them are still playing today, and have surpassed me by far in skills and gear ;-)

The moral of the story:

There was this many free players at this time that the central trading point often was just a slide-show. But we got used to it, and enjoyed it. The world was full of people, and we had fun together.
I agree that there needs to be a certain relation between depositors and not-depositors (or rare-depositors ...) to keep things going - but I see the not-/ rare-depositors as an important part of the universe. Even if they only help to add flavor to a place.

Todays Port Atlantis isn't comparable at all anymore. It's a wasteland of shiny architecture, else a ghost town nearly. Same for the other cities, on Calypso or elsewhere. May be that just people sharing my on-line times have left, but I feel a big pain seeing it. I know there was better times!

All the cool stuff recently done for "new player experience", the gifts, the missions, whatever, doesn't balance the massive loss in real new player experience we suffered due to changed loots, increased prices for gaming/ h, and the broken-down sweat market. Well, only the old players know how it was back then ...

Back in '05, it took me maybe 2 months to start depositing seriously. Today, I'd be gone for good by this time, for sure.
Back then, I joined a living virtual world, filled with nice and not-so-nice people. Now, I'm really thinking each time if I should log in, do my "kill a gigazillion of [insert mob here]" mission, or if I better should read the forum first - and usually another day w/o EU starts here.
Back then, PE was a real virtual world. Today, EU is a virtual desert.

EU has become the gambling casino for few big spenders. Even dangerous mobs like Atrax Old Alpha will not loot anything of interest anymore - and this will be dangerous mobs for a lot of people for quite a lot of time, it took me years to kill my first!
After the nOOb areas new players are landing in a harsh world - nobody is interested in their sweat (I sometimes buy for charity, not that I'd need it ...), any newbie hunt will end with frustrating results, no chance anymore for looting anything valuable.

The constructive part:

• Sweat needs to have more uses again. To prevent abuse, maybe add a sweat skill cap again.
  Sweating for 3h should make it possible to do a small 1h hunt on Punys. Without having to wait 2 days until some charity buyer donates you the money ...
  .
• It might be controversial, but restricting the first gift vehicles to 1h of in game use, and then requiring certain attributes to use others. Adventure, TP runs, fun, excitement again, anyone in with me?
  .
• Every mob should, rarely, be able to loot gear usable to kill the next bigger one, and every even tiny mob should loot something with good MU, rarely. New players need a goal, incentives, goodies!
  Nothing more frustrating than knowing that your fraggled anyways, until you can start to hunt the big phat sissies.
  .
• Mob loot should be determined more by the damage that a mob dishes out, less by mob HP/ Regen. Stupidly whacking on huge HP monsters while watching TV on the other screen isn't what defines a good game ...

Maybe we'd get some more participants again, this way. But I know, it's a dream.

Have fun!

Click to expand...

So true! I completely agree. My big sister Jamira (WoF Winner 2012, designer of Monria apartments, ATH No. 1 Atrox hunter at EntropiaLife) left this crude world lately and withdrawed all our founds. We both joined in 2005/2007. MA will NOT learn. They give a shit to leaving regular depositors (I talk about 250 ±50 Euro per month). This game is really dead. Well, after 10 years - wich is a success at least

Me and my sister were the perfect example: Jamira was skilling like hell (ended up at Arch Master Swodsman) and got all the benefit from using high-end gear + high skills ... wich means nearly 100% return. I was the fashion-babe with all this apartment issues and good clothes ... I was the bad ass as well - the beauty and the beast combined in one person

We had such amazing times here! We met folks from all over the world - bad and good. And that was incredible! And amazing! Soooo many adventures, discussions and experiances!

All this spirit has gone. It's no longer worth to spend a single PED.

Goodby Project Entropia

Kristin said:

Goodby Project Entropia

Click to expand...

Hello Kristin.

Your anger and passion are the perfect vehicles we need to populate this place.

I agree with a lot of what you said. But the trick is to see beyond what they said.

Remember as a child your father and mother said "Oh don't be silly, it is what it is".

Well, Kristen, you know we have to grow beyond them.

So, shout and scream and demand this game does not die and does not turn into some retarded sims game.

I for one am against it.

The internet is not something MA owns. get this, realize this and act. Act else you are really going to look stupid to your children....and yes mods, that MEANS YOU.

Xandra said:

Hi,



A story from the past:

Back in the good old days, when Port Atlantis was this much populated that MA had to change the layout (marketplace walled in with a separate local chat), there was quite plenty of "free players" that, besides sweating, earned a few PEC with "entry-level-trading".
Means, they had sweated until they had a few PED (or had done a low deposit), and then stood there for hours buying stuff: Ores, hunting loot, such things. In small amounts. For low prices, but still above TT.
They collected a bit of stuff, sold to "higher traders" or to a crafter (if they were good in the job), and thus made a PED or three a day.

This was a very comfortable situation, for little hunting/ mining nOObs like me - easy to sell small quantities of loot, and, after I started crafting, easy to barter some loot for the 20 Lyst I needed
There was a lot of them back than, and it was a place burstling of fun & life. All were chatting, dancing at the music box, sliding around the floor, and friendships were made.

Often I went sweating with some of these, or we did some little team hunts - after all, I was the (depositing) mighty hunter in shiny Goblin armor, with not one but even 2 (!) axes 2x0! I know for sure that at least 2 of them are still playing today, and have surpassed me by far in skills and gear ;-)

The moral of the story:

There was this many free players at this time that the central trading point often was just a slide-show. But we got used to it, and enjoyed it. The world was full of people, and we had fun together.
I agree that there needs to be a certain relation between depositors and not-depositors (or rare-depositors ...) to keep things going - but I see the not-/ rare-depositors as an important part of the universe. Even if they only help to add flavor to a place.

Todays Port Atlantis isn't comparable at all anymore. It's a wasteland of shiny architecture, else a ghost town nearly. Same for the other cities, on Calypso or elsewhere. May be that just people sharing my on-line times have left, but I feel a big pain seeing it. I know there was better times!

All the cool stuff recently done for "new player experience", the gifts, the missions, whatever, doesn't balance the massive loss in real new player experience we suffered due to changed loots, increased prices for gaming/ h, and the broken-down sweat market. Well, only the old players know how it was back then ...

Back in '05, it took me maybe 2 months to start depositing seriously. Today, I'd be gone for good by this time, for sure.
Back then, I joined a living virtual world, filled with nice and not-so-nice people. Now, I'm really thinking each time if I should log in, do my "kill a gigazillion of [insert mob here]" mission, or if I better should read the forum first - and usually another day w/o EU starts here.
Back then, PE was a real virtual world. Today, EU is a virtual desert.

EU has become the gambling casino for few big spenders. Even dangerous mobs like Atrax Old Alpha will not loot anything of interest anymore - and this will be dangerous mobs for a lot of people for quite a lot of time, it took me years to kill my first!
After the nOOb areas new players are landing in a harsh world - nobody is interested in their sweat (I sometimes buy for charity, not that I'd need it ...), any newbie hunt will end with frustrating results, no chance anymore for looting anything valuable.

The constructive part:

• Sweat needs to have more uses again. To prevent abuse, maybe add a sweat skill cap again.
  Sweating for 3h should make it possible to do a small 1h hunt on Punys. Without having to wait 2 days until some charity buyer donates you the money ...
  .
• It might be controversial, but restricting the first gift vehicles to 1h of in game use, and then requiring certain attributes to use others. Adventure, TP runs, fun, excitement again, anyone in with me?
  .
• Every mob should, rarely, be able to loot gear usable to kill the next bigger one, and every even tiny mob should loot something with good MU, rarely. New players need a goal, incentives, goodies!
  Nothing more frustrating than knowing that your fraggled anyways, until you can start to hunt the big phat sissies.
  .
• Mob loot should be determined more by the damage that a mob dishes out, less by mob HP/ Regen. Stupidly whacking on huge HP monsters while watching TV on the other screen isn't what defines a good game ...

Maybe we'd get some more participants again, this way. But I know, it's a dream.

Have fun!

Click to expand...

Xandra,
I can agree with you to an extend. Hell, I was one of those F2P guys, and now I am actually an investor here.

And I do not disagree with the importance of having F2P guys in. F2P are indeed an essential part of the economy. However, you must not focus on getting those in. Because they will either become resellers (we have plenty of those) or they will dissappointed. It's just as ineffective a matter of growing the game as the "Play a game and get rich quick" approach of the early days

While I further agree with the loot thing, I don't think cost to play went up. I think that cost to play, at the same level, has dropped significantly. But of course, we all grew, so we got used to higher levels of play, which bring higher cost.

I do miss the social aspect of the game that we used to have in the beginning. I was pondering that yesterday while killing more puny. But it can also be that this is my own fault. Back then, I was always broke, so I had nothing else to do than socialize. Now, I have a (slowly declining) stream of CLD income, and less time, so I just hunt monomanously...

Having said all this: I fully support the bullet list you have made. Send it to them in a support case

Kristin said:

I was the fashion-babe with all this apartment issues and good clothes ... I was the bad ass as well - the beauty and the beast combined in one person

We had such amazing times here! We met folks from all over the world - bad and good. And that was incredible! And amazing! Soooo many adventures, discussions and experiances!

All this spirit has gone. It's no longer worth to spend a single PED.

Click to expand...

Maybe time someone takes over the Mr/Miss Calypso event and gets it Rolling. It's been a long time since.

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?237476-Mister-Miss-Calypso-2013-UPDATE