Marco@www.playmmo

[RexDameon]

Marco has answered some questions on playmmo (formely Acamedic Dream)

Q34-Legal status, Implication of the Project Entropia

Legal Implications of the Project Entropia
Cheers Marco we have been noticed since some months, that MA turned PE into a profitable commercial service, and on the way on the stability.The game became better, and more and more customers came in it.
175 295 –> The total number of auctions of virtual items since October 2003
70 000 US$ –> The value of virtual house sales since November 2003
40 700 000 US$ -> Total economy turnover since January 2004
those statistics, as a proof of the reliabilty of the project, shows the interest from a each-month-larger community. Yet, this community is wondering some things, and our researchs didnt bring answers.
Indeed, we are curious to know what is the exact legal standing or implications of the compagny the Game u created in Sweden, the Project Entropia? (Commercial service company, Investment compagny, bank buisness?).We also would like to know about the legal rules that manage the Virtual world of Calypso( as an international game, do the ingame activities like 'trading' falls under the international trading laws or swedish ones?
Does Swedish or International Control organism exist, that checks the equity of the Economic engine for each participant, and also check that statistic probabilities to get a item 'X' or a loot 'Y' are egal for each participant?
Do u have any duty to reveal to a public organism your balance sheet, and the changes you could bring to your system if that could harm some groups of players?
as Conclusion, which legal covers Mindark offer us about our investiments, unfortunately if your company would turn to bankrupt? How far could we get back our money and, what would be the time limit?
Thanks a lot to answer those unusual wonderings, and to give us a bit of your time to clean up our minds
keep on the good work Marco!

A:34

MindArk is a privately owned company, and works like any ordinary company. The laws that govern MA is the laws of Sweden (as stated in the CoU). If you have any questions about Swedish law, I suggest you contact a laywer, as I am not qualified to answer any such matters.

Q35- Deposit via phone and alternatives deposit systems

Hello Marco
-we would like to know more about the Phone Deposit system that seems to exist ingame, but works only for the USA community actually. Would it be technically possible to adapt this system to the european depositers ? does it still work or du you plan to cancel it?
we guess that some players cant use Credit card to deposit online, restricting by this way the ability to import money ingame.
-We also would like to know if you plan to extend the number of Project Entropia PED Certificate salespoint, especially In France ? we have some reasons to think that such payment option would be used by some players due to security and easy-acess that the PED certificate represents.
well, have a nice day, and thank you again for your answers.
cheers,

A:35

1) The phone companies currently charge about 70% in transaction fees doing phone deposits (compared to a few % when using a credit card). I doubt any PE player would like to pay those 70% - therefore we no longer support phone deposits at all, nor do we intend to begin again - unless the market situation changed drastically.

2) Any potential partner that wishes to be a PED Certificate distributor needs to contact MA for an evaluation. We welcome any and all serious partnerships.

Q-36 :Fruits,Sweetstuff and Nutriobars

Hi Marco

Most of players on the forum are doubtful concerning fruits.
MindArk has added them since December,10th,2004 thus everyone could gather some and make nutriobars from fruits and sweetstuff
However i couldnot find anyone who knows how to use nutriobars,fruits or sweetstuff in the right way.

1) Is there an unknown use of them at the moment?
2)If there is a use,what is it?
3)What is the interest to add them in the virtual universe if they have no use,thus no real economic value?
4)when will they be useful?
Thanks a lot for replying to the community.
Bye

A36:

They will be usable in other ways than today in the future. MA have long term plans in many areas of PE development, and some systems comes in phases.

Q-37 : Tools,Items & Stats

Good day,Marco

Consumers are always looking for products which fit them the best and at the right price.
Thats why information is important.

1)Do you think that avatars should know an item before to buy it?
Do you think it would boost or reduce the market?
Why?

2)The most obvious example might be mining detector tools and first-aid kits(Of-10x,faps,etc..).
There is a large difference between a fap5 and a modified fap.There "may" be a difference between of-101 and of-105.
However,when you check the infos of these items,you cant find any stats.
When will that be adjusted?

3)Do you plan to add informations like reload speed and decay (or any else) on the items?
If so,can you tell us when will it be added?
if not,why not adding these infos?


Thank you very much for replying to the community
These questions are concerning almost everyone in PE.
Bye !

A:37

I agree, and updates to the info on the items are scheduled for this year - the exact release date is not yet available though. The first items that have received such updates are the Mindforce chips. Similar info will be present on tools, weapons, etc as well later on.

Q-38 : Accounts stats

Hello Marco !

At the moment,there are 225 000 PE accounts.But is it really representative if we think about the players making several avatars and the one-timers?

1)What is MindArk's stance regarding the subscription to several accounts for the same person.?(then several avatars)

2)Do you measure the general activity of each avatar?(for example login durations,peds spent,or else criteria)

3)How large do you assess the amount of usual players?(2 weeks of "playing" or any else criteria)

4)How large is the amount of players that MindArk is aiming at?


Thank you very much for answering these questions
Good bye !

A:38

The numbers requested are confidential, as MA operates by a unique business model and we have many competitors that would nothing less than get a good look into our numbers.

 

[Skam]

Thanks Rex!

Good that items on stats are coming, but
I kind of like it that you can get "famous" ingame for beeing known as making good charts and beeing a good researcher. It makes the community seek out for those pages, I think maybe that all the stuff we dont know is exactly what is bringing the community together, asking, helping, researching.

 

[Knuckles]

Thanks Rex!

Good that items on stats are coming, but
I kind of like it that you can get "famous" ingame for beeing known as making good charts and beeing a good researcher. It makes the community seek out for those pages, I think maybe that all the stuff we dont know is exactly what is bringing the community together, asking, helping, researching.

Well..maybe. Most list on weapons are inaccurate and I like the idea of official stats on stuff like reload and decay since it should be more exact

 

[Skam]

Well..maybe. Most list on weapons are inaccurate and I like the idea of official stats on stuff like reload and decay since it should be more exact

Yeps Ive been thinking about it more now.
I would like to see reload time on weapons and Id like to see heal/reload on faps and stats on other items aswell. And the community could get together on efficency vs skills and other complicated matters, as well as loot tables, skilltables blablabla. I mean its ALOT of stuff in PE to grab on to! (one of the things that makes it so great!)

 

[Devil Doll]

Thanks alot!

DD