jambon
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- Dec 14, 2006
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- James Jambon Zidane
Not really meaning to fan the flames of doubt here but with the recent disruption/delays with withdrawals and all the financial armageddon stuff going on in the world lately - I can't help but think when the time comes, how will Entropia end? Will we see it coming? Will there be notice? What warning signs will their be? Have you ever thought about it as you whip out your credit card to complete your 10th deposit this month? (I'm sure I'll be able to pull all this out when it's time to pay for my kids college, right?) lol
Case #1 - I suppose there is one expectation that things could just slowly wind down with players gradually leaving and less players coming in and markups gradually receding to a point where there are no markup and the playerbase is minimal before things just naturally end. All giving people ample time to liquidate and get their money out with a minimal loss before things "end".
But, there is also the possibility of a more abrupt end. For example, going by how this type of thing has played out with many other businesses, a financial issue with Mindark could also spell an abrupt end - much like others I don't think we would see it coming and there wouldn't be any notice. It's surprising how financial statements can cleverly hide the real truth of a business's financial situation until it all blows up. Many businesses that have been "too big to fail" had financial reports that painted a good picture leading right up to their ultimate (and rapid) demise.
Case #2 - I could see the day that Mindark becomes insolvent as the day Entropia ends and how I see happening is the servers will go down with the typical warnings "going down for a brief maintenance" and they simply won't come back online. 20 Minutes will pass, then an hour, then 2, then the forums will be a buzz with everyone asking "what's going on?". More hours will pass before an email finally arrives in your inbox where Mindark officially states that they have become insolvent and are shutting down effective immediately.
Depending on their true financial situation at that point I could see them MAYBE continue to honor withdrawals that have already been requested. In a best case scenario, they may even honor the TT value of your holdings and allow you to pull it out provided it's over their threshold of 1000 peds (but they may increase that threshold in this case). The also may impose limits where they will only reimburse people up to a fixed value or the value of all their deposits in the last 6 months. In a worst (and not impossible) case scenario they may simply choose to not honor any ped value on accounts as their ToS tends to favor them rather than players (lets not forget they can do a lot without notice and they can do anything with notice, notice does not prevent changes from happening) and they know that the vast majority of people don't have enough in this game to be worth mounting any sort of legal action to get it out. So they may at that point impose a "only if we're forced to" payout policy if remaining funds are very tight.
In any case, with the second scenario the universal truths are that:
- All your skills instantly become 100% worthless
- The peds in markup you paid for your gun(s) will instantly be lost (hopefully you didn't put it all in a 200,000+ ped gun the day before)
- The peds in markup you paid for your armor will instantly be lost (hopefully you didn't put it all in a 40,000+ ped armor/plate set)
- The countless peds you've paid for Deeds, Real Estate, Shopkeepers, Chips, Tools, Land Areas, Motherships...etc will all instantly be lost too.
It can be a very sobering thought when you take the time to look at your ratio of markup to TT value of all the things you have in your account and the amount of trust you need to place that MA and Entropia will remain solvent.
Anyways, just curious if I'm alone with starting to think more about this lately with things going on with global financials. Don't get me wrong, I understand the recent flap with withdrawals is temporary and there's a lot of promise for EU on the horizon especially with the launch of the Unreal version and the sheer volume of new players that may bring in. I'm not trying to cast doubt here, Entropia could go another 20+ years. But, to not ever at least give this any thought seems kind of foolish. What's your take?
Case #1 - I suppose there is one expectation that things could just slowly wind down with players gradually leaving and less players coming in and markups gradually receding to a point where there are no markup and the playerbase is minimal before things just naturally end. All giving people ample time to liquidate and get their money out with a minimal loss before things "end".
But, there is also the possibility of a more abrupt end. For example, going by how this type of thing has played out with many other businesses, a financial issue with Mindark could also spell an abrupt end - much like others I don't think we would see it coming and there wouldn't be any notice. It's surprising how financial statements can cleverly hide the real truth of a business's financial situation until it all blows up. Many businesses that have been "too big to fail" had financial reports that painted a good picture leading right up to their ultimate (and rapid) demise.
Case #2 - I could see the day that Mindark becomes insolvent as the day Entropia ends and how I see happening is the servers will go down with the typical warnings "going down for a brief maintenance" and they simply won't come back online. 20 Minutes will pass, then an hour, then 2, then the forums will be a buzz with everyone asking "what's going on?". More hours will pass before an email finally arrives in your inbox where Mindark officially states that they have become insolvent and are shutting down effective immediately.
Depending on their true financial situation at that point I could see them MAYBE continue to honor withdrawals that have already been requested. In a best case scenario, they may even honor the TT value of your holdings and allow you to pull it out provided it's over their threshold of 1000 peds (but they may increase that threshold in this case). The also may impose limits where they will only reimburse people up to a fixed value or the value of all their deposits in the last 6 months. In a worst (and not impossible) case scenario they may simply choose to not honor any ped value on accounts as their ToS tends to favor them rather than players (lets not forget they can do a lot without notice and they can do anything with notice, notice does not prevent changes from happening) and they know that the vast majority of people don't have enough in this game to be worth mounting any sort of legal action to get it out. So they may at that point impose a "only if we're forced to" payout policy if remaining funds are very tight.
In any case, with the second scenario the universal truths are that:
- All your skills instantly become 100% worthless
- The peds in markup you paid for your gun(s) will instantly be lost (hopefully you didn't put it all in a 200,000+ ped gun the day before)
- The peds in markup you paid for your armor will instantly be lost (hopefully you didn't put it all in a 40,000+ ped armor/plate set)
- The countless peds you've paid for Deeds, Real Estate, Shopkeepers, Chips, Tools, Land Areas, Motherships...etc will all instantly be lost too.
It can be a very sobering thought when you take the time to look at your ratio of markup to TT value of all the things you have in your account and the amount of trust you need to place that MA and Entropia will remain solvent.
Anyways, just curious if I'm alone with starting to think more about this lately with things going on with global financials. Don't get me wrong, I understand the recent flap with withdrawals is temporary and there's a lot of promise for EU on the horizon especially with the launch of the Unreal version and the sheer volume of new players that may bring in. I'm not trying to cast doubt here, Entropia could go another 20+ years. But, to not ever at least give this any thought seems kind of foolish. What's your take?
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one of slogans could be.. "its safer than taking a bike ride" 
