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AMA Ask Me Anything Compilation

I shouldnt pollute this thread with this but...

Atrax said:
It's AMA or it isn't. I will point that out every time someone posts this.
<loads of stuff deleted>
Express yourself. 100%. Don't take one second telling me what I should or should not have to say. Then I can offer you the same respect.
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Yes, I didn't say don't post your question.. But don't expect a response to floods or rants. If you want an answer, show some respect.
 
osten said:
... don't expect a response ...
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/thread really

Sorry for over-salting the popcorn. But it's not like anybody is coming up with these "floods of questions" off the cuff.

Some rants, for sure.

We have compilations. Waiting years for answers. The only reason for a thread like this to exist is to highlight the point that none of those questions are likely to be answered.

I'm sorry prophet I know it's not what you meant, or wanted. I've posted on topic already I'm done here. It feels a bit hypocritical of me to keep policing someone else's policing of other people's manners.
 
Rant?? Respect??
Ost do u play the same game as we do?
Since when questions like WHEN and WHY are considered to be disrespect?
We all know in what sorry state EU is atm and I do feel sorry for new CEO (like human being for human being). Decisions of previous management bring us here,not his,but hell, he took a job... And he is in office for 9 months now,and what is done?? Nothing?

P.S.
Respect dont come with the title CEO or President or whatever, it comes with deeds of jobs done.
 
osten said:
I shouldnt pollute this thread with this but...



Yes, I didn't say don't post your question.. But don't expect a response to floods or rants. If you want an answer, show some respect.
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Agree 100%
 
1. Entropia has such beautiful bodies of water, will MA be adding fishing to the game at some point?

2. Since armor and items from the shop aren't tradable will you be adding collection quests to upgrade them so they don't just take up space in our inventories?

3. How is work going on the plots? It's been a while since they have been updated and players are starting to feel ripped off.

4. Would you consider adding a development tool to the game for players to create truly unique looking items? Something like this would not only appeal to creative players but also bolster game content at very low cost to you.

5. Do you plan to add incentives for twitch streaming to increase views? (I.E. if you watch streamer get a HoF you get 10 ped added to your account or a unique peice of clothing etc.)

Thanks!
 
Crig said:
Rant?? Respect??
Ost do u play the same game as we do?
Since when questions like WHEN and WHY are considered to be disrespect?
We all know in what sorry state EU is atm and I do feel sorry for new CEO (like human being for human being). Decisions of previous management bring us here,not his,but hell, he took a job... And he is in office for 9 months now,and what is done?? Nothing?

P.S.
Respect dont come with the title CEO or President or whatever, it comes with deeds of jobs done.
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agreed and quote it

with our regards just make some things done!
 
copied from the other thread since it's probably more suitable here: (mods may want to think about combining both threads actually since they are essentially the same thing)
mastermesh said:
Mr. CEO, many folks DO accuse this game of being similar to 'slots' or 'gambling' on a regular basis... the elusive 'loot pools' statements mindark's put out in dev notes, etc. sometimes actually have added to that sentiment. Perhaps it's time going forward to further explain the workings of how the loot pool system works more. Many seem to be confused by it, and there's even an entire theories section of the forum you may want to read through... a lot of folks don't come near this game when they read on some forum that it's nothing more than an online casino... that perception has been both in forums and in various community websites for over a decade, really since the game began... and it causes certain types of individuals to be more attracted to the game and others to not give it a second thought about leaving before they even get past the avatar creation station... if you want to widen the target audience of the game... well, you might want to take some of this type of stuff in to consideration.

This game should be aimed at both casual and hard core players, and be a form of entertainment and fun for both, not a place where casual players get bashed by anyone logging in more than than others, or doing something different than others, etc. A lot of times some in the community seem to want to make this out to be some type of 'grinding job' and the complain heavily about anyone who doesn't have as many globals than them in tracker etc...

Speaking of tracker... when will Mindark create it's own in game variation of that type of thing... and stop requiring the community to utilize websites run by others in the community to do things like what tracker does, like what the mining log sites and apps do, like what the sometimes changing hands wiki does, etc. In the past some community websites, (including but not limited to the one you are reading right now) have been hit with viruses (ok the ads were doing it not the main site but still...), even planet partners sites, etc. have done similar (Monria being one of the latest ones some adware found activity on)... When will mindark start making all communication, apps required to 'play the game the right way', etc. be on more 'safe' channels and methods routinely checked for malicious activity such as worms, viruses, etc. Since the beginning mindark's encouraged folks to go the community for answers instead of answering things themselves... will you continue this legacy of sending community members quite literally in to the wormholes of the internet?...

Along a similar avenue, there's been, over the years, many, many reports of 'botting' type activities in game in regard to actions certain avatars take to skill up, do certain things on the auction, or even in chats... At one point in time, one of the individuals that you currently have as an 'advisor' (before the time that he was an advisor) in game chat tried to get me in to contact with the services of one such 'chat bot' programmer or something similar. I declined that offer, but suspect that others may be taking up offers like that routinely... what are you doing to halt that type of activity, especially when its so widespread that it's being done by those that you are hiring on in advisory roles?...
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My AMA questions!

Are any support for Linux/Mac planned? Some of us like to have at least minimum support (playable game with minimal settings at least). Well, even minimal playable in wine will be considered as "supported".

More realistic craft pipelines (loot dissected to matherials, matherials crafted into components, components build up bigger stuff, bigger stuff built into gun (with some basic mats, but definelly not from "mob tails").

And I upvote all questions about permabanning cheaters/scammers, and about space underdevelopment.
 
I'm a fairly significant depositor and my questions to the CEO are:

1) When will other building types become available for land plots?

2) The 'Loot 2.0' update is awful. The return is very poor, but I'm mainly annoyed that all I ever seem to get now is shrapnel and nothing else. Where are the items?! It's making hunting very boring. The loot system was much better a few years ago (was at its best when we got the odd gun or armor part etc). Would MindArk consider changing this so that us hunters start to see more items in our loot?

3) For the more expensive items in-game (things like rare items and land areas/plots/shops etc), I think it would be hugely beneficial to be able to have items that can be jointly owned through a society structure. Could operate just like a limited company. Would help smaller societies get jointly owned items and bring some worth to the society function. Would MindArk consider adding a feature like this?

4) As a spin-off on the above point, I think it would be great if estate owners could rent their plots to tenants. This would give those with estates an extra income stream and it would open up the whole apartment/house scene to players who either can't afford or don't want to own an estate but do want to have their own little place. Is this something MindArk would consider implementing?

5) I love vehicles in the game. However, other than for general transport they are pretty useless. Would MindArk consider adding extra features like needing a boat to 'fish' for resources or other vehicles that you could hunt and loot mobs with?

6) Does MindArk plan to stop spending players money on daft projects like Compet and DeepToken and start delivering on content promised for Entropia Universe?
 
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He didnt say....

actual Players were being invited to MA HQ. He said 'participants'...anyone testing the camera system is a participant and most likely or intelligently would involve someone with coding experience or gaming experience worth listening to.


Brick
 
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Nothing after 4 months, this is next level laziness or sheer apathy on MA's part. You really expect us to depot when you continue to show zero commitment to the game or community? Glad I followed my gut and pulled out my ped months ago.

For f$%k sakes give me one tiny reason to return that's all I'm asking.
 
Butterknife said:
Nothing after 4 months, this is next level laziness or sheer apathy on MA's part. You really expect us to depot when you continue to show zero commitment to the game or community? Glad I followed my gut and pulled out my ped months ago.

For f$%k sakes give me one tiny reason to return that's all I'm asking.
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Haha no shit! Not even a fokken merry christmas from CEO.
4 months and this kid did nothing - just pay him his cut and go moan more on this or that forum.
As long as they count endless amounts of depoed PED's there will be no AMA, no bugs fix. This community has one big Stockholm (Gotheborg?) Syndrome.

Cheer up, it's christmas. Happy holiday to y'all.
 
copy/paste of a few other thread posts that are somewhat relevant here...

copy/paste of another thread posts that is somewhat relevant here...

mastermesh said:
Originally, there was only one planet... then came continents, asteroids, planets, a system to create new planets, and then planetoids called moons... then Mindark went and started a bunch of crap outside of the game, trying to use the game to pay for it... only now is Mindark starting to realize it got too darn big for its britches. So... compets died, Deep Token died... planet entry fees died... they are starting to scale back but not enough... to get it back to what you are talking about when there was one planet and avatars all over the place on it would require jamming all planet servers in to one planet again, and just making each planet a different continent on that planet.... even then, it'd still feel sparse I suspect, unless all of the servers on each planet did a downsize like what Rocktropia and Cyrene did... (done in large part since Mindark rents it's servers to the Planet owners for a fee way too high for them to sustain mostly)...

all comes down to Mindark getting way too far reaching in the original 'project entropia' idea.... scaling back will likely continue... but we'll see how far the push it...

many, many, many promises and hopes have been smashed over time... more likely will continue to be... until Mindark and the Planet Partners get it to the scale that they can actually manage... which it isn't yet... more downsizing likely will be a coming I suspect.

Since Mindark is finally starting to listen just a bit....

Political system CLDs promised never got delivered yet... (despite the Virtual president that never was president of anything)

Promised release of all apartments, shops, etc. on each planet hasn't happened yet... (and management of those properties still is meh.. still got weeds in old Omegaton basements, a bunch of apartments there and in other places both on Calypso and elsewhere not sold yet )

Look at that: a broken promise from 2007 still unfulfilled, how quaint:
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...swers-(May-07)&p=792907&viewfull=1#post792907

No shop directory in game, despite our Community liaison actually making that suggestion prior to taking on that role... https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...op-directory&p=2354487&viewfull=1#post2354487

Pets... well, compets is dead, but making pets worthwhile to have in Entropia itself is still in need of severe help... before compets died it had some interesting ideas like gems that could be used to create trinkets for the pets to wear to give them permanent buffs, not just this temporary crap you can buy in the stables... adding something like that in game could give some usefulness to pets, stables, taming, etc.

Mindark, with it's contracts it makes the Planet Partners sign has potential to enforce some interesting stuff, like making them keep domain registry fees paid up... keeping viruses off of their servers that community visits, etc. https://entropialoot.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/monrias-cyrenes-forum-are-both-down/

Instead... we have crap all scattered around the internet on different sites run by different folks all over the place as it it now, occasional domains disappearing, wikis disappearing, unreliable servers letting viruses in, etc. When it all was on one main page and one planet things were a bit more family-like... Mindark went in to too many tangents and the community drifted in different directions too, so now having more than a few avatars in one spot is a rarity. In some ways this is good since the server behind the avatars cannot handle too many in one spot, but from a community perspective, meh... I think somewhere a few years back someone indicated it was Mindark's goal to get something like 60-80 percent of all avatars in an solo type instance on any server at any time... in part to help with lag, but for some other reasons too... could be they are actually heading in that direction a bit too much?

There's many, many things those in upper development could do... Community gives them hints at some steps to take, will they listen?
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mastermesh said:
Regarding McCormick this is on e.p. too. Give him a few hours... oh, and Mr. CEO, please look at McCormick's blog for another listing of unfinished things.. actually his list is probably THE MOST comprehensive list created thus far...
http://content-of-oblivion.blogspot.com/
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This is a bit off topic but I followed that link and found it incredibly fascinating. I now understand why so many of the old players here get so nostalgic about the game. When I look at those old screenshots and the stories behind them I see a really cool indie game that I'm sad I never got to play. I see a consistent theme and vision. I see cool ideas that should have been realized. I see a really neat indie sci-fi survival game. And frankly, I like the older graphics way better than the current ones. At least there was a unique style to them and they don't just look like canned assets bought from an asset shop. There are plenty of successful indie games on Steam right now with graphics of the same quality (or worse) as the old PE; I wish they would have stuck with them and spent their resources realizing their vision for the game play instead. I really wish I could have experienced it, it just looks so cool to explore. I didn't even know it, but really the current version just feels like a cheap sellout by comparison. Thanks for sharing this!
 
:confused: might as well ask a question, just in case


"Was the attempt to isolate crafting further from the other professions (hunting/mining) with the introduction of a basically completly independent bp (explosive proj. crafting) in retrospect considered a good thing for the company and the game? Is this a fluke or a trend we can expect to continue and maybe even cross over to the other professions?"
 
um3ro.jpg



:dunce:
 
LOL so much questions..... I think I go for the last one, just one.

Please make me, a reservation in the last row :cool:
 
Detritus said:
This is a bit off topic but I followed that link and found it incredibly fascinating. I now understand why so many of the old players here get so nostalgic about the game. When I look at those old screenshots and the stories behind them I see a really cool indie game that I'm sad I never got to play. I see a consistent theme and vision. I see cool ideas that should have been realized. I see a really neat indie sci-fi survival game. And frankly, I like the older graphics way better than the current ones. At least there was a unique style to them and they don't just look like canned assets bought from an asset shop. There are plenty of successful indie games on Steam right now with graphics of the same quality (or worse) as the old PE; I wish they would have stuck with them and spent their resources realizing their vision for the game play instead. I really wish I could have experienced it, it just looks so cool to explore. I didn't even know it, but really the current version just feels like a cheap sellout by comparison. Thanks for sharing this!
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It was, and it is. Thanks for bothering to look. Now you know how we got so hooked back then.
 
Didn´t know if it is already asked, but my question would be:

1. There have been things advertised in the past, which untill now haven´t been implemented. Are you still considering to deliver this things (example Voting Rights for CLDs, Space Missions)

2. There is still a lot unused CLDs (nothing claimed), so can we expect more landplots to come, so the original advertised landplot per 9 CLDs may be possible to claim? Enough empty space on Caly to do that!
The system how plot have been claimed so far can still be used, although its unlikely to get a plot for 9 deeds with it.

3. Will there be more options to use landplots, speak other buildings with different functionallity (maybe Shops, Booth, Homes, different Farming, or just surprise us).

4. Is there some kind of roadmap to improve space in the future, atm its fairly useless and mostly anoying due to pirate activity. Some non PvP hunting zones there would be nice.

5. Do you consider to implement space mining, as many players asked for that.

6. Is it somehow possible to address the issue of not maintained player owned properties (landareas, domes, shops) sitting on long time (over 3 years) inactive accounts?

7. Is there any plans for doing some economical balancing (loot compilation)

8. Can we hope for an crafting overhowl, as many items we can craft are completely obsolete and outdated.

9. There is still component BPs, where the product isn´t used for any further crafting, do you consider to close this gaps and add some BPs, so that all craftable components have a use.
 
I think the most impactful thing to the community would be all the underdeveloped promises that people have spent a fair amount of money into such as stables, statues, space missions etc. Would go some distance to develop these first as to content that nobody has asked for.

When will these finally be completed?

Also Support has been godly slow for sometime now, are there plans to improve ( hire people ) to drop the response times from real issues that often take months to get a response?
 
I would like to kindly ask to lay open the reasons and rationale MindArk had for introducing Explosive Projectile crafting in this particular way. What did you hope to achieve, was it achieved, and what internal or external factors would influence its future?

The calls for retracting it aren't ending any time soon. It is confounding and seen as damaging by many. However, there is little but assumptions founded by more or less subjective perceptions in the argumentation both pro and con. Hundreds of posts have been written, this latest one sums it up nicely i.m.o.:
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...(or-change-them)-Part-2&p=3688809#post3688809

Please help us understand at last, to form a solid base for drawing conclusions about agreement or disagreement. I understand that a large portion of the allure of this game is that the community is left with figuring out its mechanics, but EP crafting is decidedly not a part of this and the uncertainty about what it's supposed to mean in the game's context is deeply unsatisfying.
 
theProphet said:
I'll keep my Q for a later reply. Good think takes time... :silly2:
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Q: why can't pilots (technically) run space-/warpservices in EU? they can't add people to guestlist, and they can't summon them? :scratch2:

i'm just wondering, that would be an easy change huh? ... or are you scared about the possible spacedrama about newbie-summoning-pirate-pilots? :ahh:
 
jambon said:
Ya know... there's probably 1001 questions people would love to ask MA but I think about 95%+ of all the questions that people are going to ask will revolve around one simple word... "WHEN?"

Over the years there have been A LOT of promises made - more than can even be listed here. More than Blizzard could keep up with if they had promised the same amount of stuff to be added to WoW.

I think if you could just answer these 2 questions everyone would be happy with the results of the AMA:

1. When are you actually going to accomplish/complete/fix all the countless things you've promised to us over the years? Please be specific going item by item with firm dates.

2. What are you ACTUALLY working on right now with at least 40 man hours per week? Thinking about something for 5 minutes while taking a shit doens't count as "working on it" neither does having something written on a whiteboard under the heading of "plans for the future". What is actually having lines of code written for it this minute?

I think as part of this new "open communication" policy the first order of business should be to do what Atrax suggested and have a list of all the proposed development tasks with a status as to where it is in the development process. To take this a step further I think it would be nice to implement the promised voting as part of CLD to vote on which of those items gets priority in development.

Having a defined firm timeline / roadmap for each item would go a long way to rebuilding the community trust which has been absolutely destroyed over the years. Of course, you also need to actually stick to that roadmap and stop getting side tracked with every shiny new trend you want to try to capitalize on. Sure, delays in development can happen but keep us updated as to why there are delays and the progress - we can be quite understanding if you don't patronize or lie to us.
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I think this is the most important thing, to rebuild faith in communication with the community, to show you aren't just another fake liar that doesn't pay any attention to us. However our faith is easy to win back through simply paying someone to communicate with us 8 hours a day. Your financial sheet showed roughly 78k a year average salary? Jeeze! Hire the necessary employees!!

People would invest nearly limitless amounts of money into your economy well into the future if one thing happens:

Clear, consistent, non-politician style communication. Not bullshit, but clear concise details of what is being worked on, when it is expected to be finished and updates if it looks like you are going to go over.

EVE online advertises their coming updates one year in advance which helps build hype for their platform. Having every planet have to release quarterly updates and having platform wide updates announced in the same fashion would do a lot for our community. Having planet partners have to fulfill an expected level of commitment would also be ince.
 
Psynergy said:
I think this is the most important thing, to rebuild faith in communication with the community, to show you aren't just another fake liar that doesn't pay any attention to us. However our faith is easy to win back through simply paying someone to communicate with us 8 hours a day. Your financial sheet showed roughly 78k a year average salary? Jeeze! Hire the necessary employees!!
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But they did. We got a dedicated community manager. At least that's what was told. He turned as terse as the rest shortly after being airlifted right out of this forum. Dunno, they must be putting something in the coffee at the office or use some sort of, er, 'enhanced' training to keep their employees from interacting. Breaking the silence occurs as exception. Right, raised for AMA.
 
Psynergy said:
Your financial sheet showed roughly 78k a year average salary? Jeeze! Hire the necessary employees!!
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That figure was derived by taking their total personnel costs and diving by the number of employees, which is wrong on several counts. For one, it shouldn't need pointing out that not everyone makes the same... C-level will earn a much larger share of that. Second, that total figure is not purely salaries - an employee costs a company typically around 125-150% of their salary due to taxes + benefits, so even if you divided evenly it would be more like 50-60k. All signs point to MA staff being greatly underpaid compared to industry rates. Even if it was 78k that would still be way under industry average.

They aren't sitting on piles of gold or anything, they are disgruntled underpaid workers that have to listen to our daily bitchfests while they eat their microwaved ramen.
 
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