Ok, here is the article I wrote.
If you have ideas on things to add, change etc. I'm glad to make edits.
No, if they approve the article I won't have to pay anything to anyone.
The article has been approved by the MA PR rep as I just got the email from her. I need to correct a couple mispellings/typos though.
A Month Old Perspective On Entropia Universe by Jason Appleton aka MMA Big Show
I’ve been playing MMORPG’s since Ultima Online. I’ve played just about every MMO released since then. I have had max level toons in multiple worlds and have been constantly searching for that one game that can keep me going for years instead of allowing me to get bored after 6 months and jumping onto the next new release. After playing one of the newest MMO’s which was a dismal failure I began searching the web for something I could really sink my teeth into and what I found was a Free To Play world called Entropia Universe.
Now, Entropia Universe, otherwise known as “EU”, is just like any other MMORPG with one major difference…it’s based on real world currency on an international level. In EU, PED is the virtual universe currency and 10 PED in EU equals one dollar. EU is free to play, you just download the client, register and you are off and running with a pair of plain orange clothes that scream “I’m brand new” and you are dumped into Port Atlantis with nothing but air and opportunity.
However, you can’t do anything yet because you don’t have anything to do anything with. You need money to start, so, you can either deposit real money and convert it into PED through the exchange system after registering your credit card on the EU website, or you can sweat animals for free. I began to sweat animals for about a couple hours and decided I could get 100 PED much more easily by depositing $10 which I did. I figured, if I paid retail for the game it would cost me $50, so making a little starter deposit to make my new beginnings easier was justified. Sweating is always a sure way to build some intial skills and make a little bit of PED to get started with but I personally don’t have the patience. So I deposited enough to get a Sollomate Opallo Rifle, some Trade Terminal Armor and some ammo and began hunting.
There are a million guides available online on forums such as EU Chronicle or EntropiaForum.com, the communities in which are very loyal to EU and have been around quite a while.
The big question people have about EU is, how can I make money? The answer is, any way you want to. I’m a bit out of an “outside the box” kind of thinker and as such I began my own “company” within the game. I started an investment fund for citizens to purchase shares of stock virtually from which the money generated is to be used to purchase a Land Area for recurring revenue streams that would go into the purchase of even more property and so on. The goal is 500,000 PED which equals out to $50,000. Yes, I’m not kidding and so far we have 90,000 PED worth of commitments. I also started a brokerage service as part of my company where I help sell or locate real estate or high end items for people on a commission basis. All of this can be found at EntropiaHoldings.com. Technically, doing what I’m doing I wouldn’t have had to deposit a penny and I could be making decent money, but I do anyway because I am also leveling my avatar to accomplish other things such as weapons crafting, tailoring, hunting and mining to name but a few of the something like 70 different options.
In EU, there are people walking around with $15,000 worth of armor on and it’s really interesting to see. Property values continue to increase and although I’ve been playing EU a little over a month at the time of this writing I’ve actually made around $600 doing what I do with more sure to come. I’m just getting started. This virtual world is for players. Period. There is no easy way to get rich if you go into EU thinking you are going to make a fortune overnight, chances are you won’t last a week. It takes time, patience and at least a fair understanding of how things work both in the game and in community politics depending on what you are trying to accomplish. If you start with a major investment into EU, odds are high in your favor that you will turn a tidy profit from your efforts, say if you buy a Land Area today and run it for a while and flip it later after the property values have gone up. Though just buying a Land Area and sitting on it isn’t enough as it’s your job to fill it with animals for people to hunt which yields revenue through taxes paid upon the looting of those animals. The better your LA’s location (ease of access) and depending on the types of loot to be found from the various animals on your property that you select, all dictates your property’s value.
There are Hangars purchased 4 years ago for 14,000 PED that sell for 180,000 PED today. That’s buying in at $1,400 and selling out at $18,000…and it happens.
Some people get into Entropia Universe so deeply and get so connected to the economy that they make their living purely from EU. There are some super stars in the game who are known for their major 6 figure investments into EU such as Neverdie or Deathifier, both of whom own and operate multple properties within the community such as Banks, Land Areas etc. It’s actually interesting to see how these two compete with eachother on high end items to his the auction block. It’s like the equivilent of Microsoft trying to compete with Apple for new customers.
Don’t compare Entropia Universe to Second Life. It’s really nothing like it and in my opinion it’s much more involving than SL. There are no level caps in EU, no skill caps, you can level everything anytime, yet it’s much like any other MMORPG you are used to playing with the exception of the notorious farmers that ruin the economies of most games. They don’t exist in EU. When was the last time you looted $2,000 worth of loot from an animal in SL? It happens every day in EU. The higher your levels in your hunting skills, the more powerful mobs you can hunt and all of them have the chance to drop Hall Of Fame loots or Globals etc, which are huge loots that are announced to everyone on the server and are typically worth a lot of money.
Everything you do in EU increases a particular skill. The more skills you have and the higher they are, the more valuable they become. Let’s say I level my character to level 10 Sniper, Level 90 Animal Tamer and level 133 Weapons Crafting and one day I decide I want to leave EU, I can simply chip out (load my skills onto implant chips to sell to others) and sell them on the Auction House, withdrawl my profits into my real life bank account and go about my business.
If you are an avid MMORPG addict and burned out on all the grind quests and starting over, you may want to give Entropia Universe a try. With the new Cry2 Engine overhaul coming soon, the somewhat dated graphics are about to see a whole new level of awe and as such will drive many new players into the Universe which will in turn drive up property values as well as values of many other items within EU.
Stop by and see us soon and if you ever need a House, Shop, Land Area or high end armor or weapon, hit me up and I’ll take care of you.
should devote more time to real life as he just informed us his wife "started popping out kids for the past two years".
