Medusa & MA

[Killahbee]

I was hoping something like this would happen soon...

When will MA finaly realise they are losing more and more players every day?
If they'd just focus on Promoting the game, adding all of the old systems (specialy mentoring) back more people would play/pay. So more income for then, more turnover ingame, more people playing, (perhaps) more people willing to bid on something huge.

Huge gratz to quetakoz for winning medusa a ridiculously low price, and gratz to MA for failing

Will they ever learn? This has to be a punch in their face right?

Ciao

 

[aridash]

if they were relying on a big ticket sale to slash around press releases, its failed in a big way.

MA, FPC and the other planets really need pull their finger out on marketing. it doesnt have to be massive high cost ad campaigns, maybe just more damn events with PR about them rather than the big price prizes. sell the activity, not the values. they put as many people off as they attract. only those already here are much interested in the values of items and land etc. newbies are interested in the gameplay and the engine, why isnt the cryengine2 implementation being flogged like a proverbial dead horse?

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

When will MA finaly realise they are losing more and more players every day?
If they'd just focus on Promoting the game, adding all of the old systems (specialy mentoring) back more people would play/pay. So more income for then, more turnover ingame, more people playing, (perhaps) more people willing to bid on something huge.

More like that the planet partners needs to advertize more, and MA needs to put the old systems back... As planet partners are the ones supposed to do marketing while MA does platform stuff

 

[mastermesh]

start bid was +1 and TT value that they guarantee on the deed was lower then that, so they actually got quite a heck of a deal out of it. My guess is LAs that go on auction next time will have much higher start bid posted by the estate broker.

 

[kingjehu]

Here is what I wonder about...

Did MA/FPC lose money on Medusa...

For those who know a thing or two about programing/game dev...

What would the cost be to create and impliment something like Medusa?

New Servers? Developers paid by the hour/how many hours to make medusa?
Other implimentation costs?


Seems to me it might be possible that Medusa cost more then $30k USD to make?




JEHU

 

[Audrey Cheerful]

Seems to me it might be possible that Medusa cost more then $30k USD to make?

Even if that were the case: Medusa adds to the game and will bring profits for MA/FPC in the future without (nearly) any more investment. (IMHO)

 

[Killahbee]

More like that the planet partners needs to advertize more, and MA needs to put the old systems back... As planet partners are the ones supposed to do marketing while MA does platform stuff

Yeah true.. you say they need to advertize more, do they even advertize at all?
It looks like the planet partners don't even know when their planet will come online...
I mean, did we ever receive a release date for a planet?

Even if that were the case: Medusa adds to the game and will bring profits for MA/FPC in the future without (nearly) any more investment. (IMHO)

True, or it will fail like like some other things they implented (like banks).
I think it will eventually give profit to them too, sadly.

My gues is they did expect a larger sum then this.. I hope they lose on this and learn a lesson (i know they won't).

 

[Chopper]

I suspect that MA/FPC have lost out badly on this deal, and will now be looking to recoup their losses from other areas. By which I mean the lootpool of course...

I'd be delighted to be wrong, but occam's razor tells me this is the likely result.

Let's take nothing away from Qetesh and Crew, they've snagged a bargain, and hopefully will turn Medusa into a place worth visiting...

Now then, who's got all the good DNA..?

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

Yeah true.. you say they need to advertize more, do they even advertize at all?
It looks like the planet partners don't even know when their planet will come online...
I mean, did we ever receive a release date for a planet?

I know that FPC has advertized a bit, with banners on websites and such... there are other better ways they should do it tho


Next Island said that their planet (except NDs part that is already open) will open up on... whenever it was, during january I think? dont wanna say too much on that tho, as I am not 100% sure

 

[strakkan]

I was hoping something like this would happen soon...

When will MA finaly realise they are losing more and more players every day?
If they'd just focus on Promoting the game, adding all of the old systems (specialy mentoring) back more people would play/pay. So more income for then, more turnover ingame, more people playing, (perhaps) more people willing to bid on something huge.

Huge gratz to quetakoz for winning medusa a ridiculously low price, and gratz to MA for failing

Will they ever learn? This has to be a punch in their face right?

Ciao

Give me proof that MA is loosing more and more players every day ! I keep hearing this ,and have heard it for years and now I want some facts !!
You obviously have something to back up this statement with , yeah?

And if it was so easy to just put every system back and promoting the game bigtime I guess they would have done it already ?

 

[remontoire]

Did MA/FPC lose money on Medusa...

For those who know a thing or two about programing/game dev...

What would the cost be to create and impliment something like Medusa?

New Servers? Developers paid by the hour/how many hours to make medusa?
Other implimentation costs?

Well, note that in the VU that Medusa came out, the Atlantis Archipelago also appeared. These both are approximately equal sized as areas, and both take up one server. So the cost of one server cannot be a major concern for FPC, as they added another one that they then did not sell off.

Development wise - I think Medusa and the Port Atlantis overhaul were about equal in the amount of development resource consumed, the crater changes for harbinger were probably less. I don't think FPC would have brought in any additional development for this, esp paid by hour for this, it seems unnecessary. Medusa is all about graphics, level development and developing two new iron missions.

All in all, I don't think it caused FPC to lose money - it probably means there is a bunch of development and expansion we are not seeing as they did not get the peds. I think FPC would not actually have lots money as such in this if it went for 1 PED. The sumima and scipulor hunters, the fishers and people doing mining on the islands will bring it all back.

 

[Killahbee]

Give me proof that MA is loosing more and more players every day ! I keep hearing this ,and have heard it for years and now I want some facts !!
You obviously have something to back up this statement with , yeah?

And if it was so easy to just put every system back and promoting the game bigtime I guess they would have done it already ?

There is no proof, there is no way of checking this. Total globals/month is going backwards but this still doesnt prove anything. I see lots of medium players (who been around 4+ years) quit.
Let me put it this way then: If mentoring was here, there would be more people playing now (this makes sence right?).
The newcomer place is one GREAT thing they released for new players

I has to be hard to put back those systems (or they would be here yeah). so many questions but MA doesn't come with answers. When was the last Q&A anyway?
The thing that bugs me most is the priority some things have above others. Medusa, vehicles, missions ok?

but: hangars, taming, mentoring, Umbranoid Cities, Amazing different human cities, Feffoid Campfire, Genesis Star building, Giant mushroom, Thorio Tempel, Rainbow Valley, Palms Corner, The golf course, Art Gallery, The Museum at PA, Robot Ships, beacons, all the missing mobs, etc etc etc etc etc

the amazing little details are gone..

so far off topic

 

[Razer]

guoting myself here:

I see this as a signal to FPC and MA that they need to figure out a different way to make money. There are just to little players and to many LA right now. And like I said on 'the other forum' I wonder if the 30k dollar was worth the build of that piece of land. 30k is about 300 to 400 hours of work and I wonder if they made it in that timeframe, counting all the board meetings and design team meetings and planning and modeling and designing and coding.

I think that both FPC and other planets need to be looking for different business models to get more money. And minimizing loot even more is not a good way. I'd say they need to get those 900.000 players they are advertising with all the time to actually come and play the game and spend a little money instead of gambling on one player spending 50k dollar.

 

[Killahbee]

I see this as a signal to FPC and MA that they need to figure out a different way to make money. There are just to little players and to many LA right now. And like I said on 'the other forum' I wonder if the 30k dollar was worth the build of that piece of land. 30k is about 300 to 400 hours of work and I wonder if they made it in that timeframe, counting all the board meetings and design team meetings and planning and modeling and designing and coding.

I think that both FPC and other planets need to be looking for different business models to get more money. And minimizing loot even more is not a good way. I'd say they need to get those 900.000 players they are advertising with all the time to actually come and play the game and spend a little money instead of gambling on one player spending 50k dollar.

you said, absolutely agree with you
If they did expect a large sum of money for Medusa, who's gonna pay for it now?...

 

[FrostBlaze]

Here is what I wonder about...

Did MA/FPC lose money on Medusa...

For those who know a thing or two about programing/game dev...

What would the cost be to create and impliment something like Medusa?

New Servers? Developers paid by the hour/how many hours to make medusa?
Other implimentation costs?


Seems to me it might be possible that Medusa cost more then $30k USD to make?




JEHU

It really depends on how good the platform provided by MA is. The process of creating new land can be made quite easy (with little to no programming involved)

 

[Xen]

Again...

It's not a reflection on the state of the game.

Several investors were in Qetesh's group, probably several of which could have bid over 300k themselves. Buzz bought CP, Deathifier is invested in an upcoming planet, Neverdie is pouring money into Rocktropia, Neomaven seems to be moving in some other direction (maybe investment elsewhere, I have no idea). Others have said they thought they had no chance against Qetesh's group. So the reason it sold so low is because there was no competition left outside the investment group. Sort of like the last LG.

It's a one time thing, as MA/FPC should have learned from this and will not start auctions like this at 1 ped again.

 

[strakkan]

There is no proof, there is no way of checking this. Total globals/month is going backwards but this still doesnt prove anything. I see lots of medium players (who been around 4+ years) quit.
Let me put it this way then: If mentoring was here, there would be more people playing now (this makes sence right?).
The newcomer place is one GREAT thing they released for new players

I has to be hard to put back those systems (or they would be here yeah). so many questions but MA doesn't come with answers. When was the last Q&A anyway?
The thing that bugs me most is the priority some things have above others. Medusa, vehicles, missions ok?

but: hangars, taming, mentoring, Umbranoid Cities, Amazing different human cities, Feffoid Campfire, Genesis Star building, Giant mushroom, Thorio Tempel, Rainbow Valley, Palms Corner, The golf course, Art Gallery, The Museum at PA, Robot Ships, beacons, all the missing mobs, etc etc etc etc etc

the amazing little details are gone..

so far off topic

So we can agree that its pretty useless and also wrong to claim that EU looses more and more players every day because we cant get facts and numbers to prove it ? I see alot of medium players log in again and start to play ! Happy ?

Dont forget that so far EU is breaking new ground with pretty much everything they release as its involving a RCE. To compare it with some other game out there is difficult and often unfair. How about if Blizzard Entertainment show some guts and make a RCE out of WOW huh?

You also keep mixing up what FPC does with MA....not gonna be next one to clearify this...search Hannes posts

I want all of the old systems back and more details too and lots and lots and lots of things ! But ive come to terms with that its not gonna happen fast ! There are sights to see in EU if you want em. Most in RELICS spend alot of hours every day in EU cuz we do what can be done with what we got so far

Best of luck !

Strakkan

 

[Karma_Jackal]

I think the main problem is the lack of traders and mostly traders. They kept the economy nice and stable and gave some good boost to the markup of basic recourses giving better returns for the top 3 professions. Loot has remained stable but the markup on those items has dropped as there is far less competition in the basic recourses market making it harder to break even due to markup.

 

[Arokh]

For those who know a thing or two about programing/game dev...

What would the cost be to create and impliment something like Medusa?

New Servers? Developers paid by the hour/how many hours to make medusa?
Other implimentation costs?


Seems to me it might be possible that Medusa cost more then $30k USD to make?

It would be surprisingly quick to make actually. The textures and a lot of the assets would have already been created for the rest of Calypso. In fact the only think I imagine they'd have had to model from scratch is the Medusas shopping area - and even then thats fairly quick if you look at its design (matter of making one level and copy/pasting it).

The longest part would be initially deciding what Medusas Head would look like - design team meetings / discussions and concept art (if FPC even do concept art anymore?). But after that, making it would be a matter of just using the terrain tools in CE2 to make the islands shapes, then apply the already made textures, and scattering existing models (trees, rocks, etc) everywhere. I've not played with CE2 much, but in the Moho Engine you can create a brush that will ' spraypaint' a user defined mixture of things like trees or rocks over an area. You can populate a huge map in minutes, and considering the size of Calypso it wouldn't surprise me if FPC created a similar tool.

Most of the environment lighting such as the daylight system is already set up for the world, so I'd imagine the only lighting they'd have to set up is the ones in the interior of the buildings.

Define some LAs, spam some creature spawns, add a TP, and you're done. I'd say actually making Medusa... a week or two at most considering how few 'new' things it needed. As I said, most systems and things needed for it have already been created for the rest of Calypso anyway. Don't think they need new servers, when they upgraded them I'd say they'd have taken into account future development and space needs.

My guess? No way it took 30K to make - most likely less than half that.

 

[FrostBlaze]

But after that, making it would be a matter of just using the terrain tools in CE2 to make the islands shapes, then apply the already made textures, and scattering existing models (trees, rocks, etc) everywhere. I've not played with CE2 much, but in the Moho Engine you can create a brush that will ' spraypaint' a user defined mixture of things like trees or rocks over an area. You can populate a huge map in minutes, and considering the size of Calypso it wouldn't surprise me if FPC created a similar tool.

I'm 100% sure that MA provides such tools to all planet partners.

 

[Xavier Target]

players

Well, according to MA posted financials on their website for the Jan-Jun time period there was a significant drop in revenues from 2009. I'm a new player, so I haven't a clue why that might be. Only the 1/2 year report is in english and I'm not motivated enough to translate the full 2009 year report. It seems though if the number of players was growing, so would revenues. There is a number in the statements labeled unconsumed user holding. I assume this is the TT value of user assets including PED. This increased somewhat and the cash recieved was about the same in each time period. I don't know nearly enough to jump to any conclusions about a 1/2 year statement comparison, but perhaps some players who were around in both time periods would be able to comment based on your observations.

 

[mrs menace]

I think we are trying to solve problems that dont belong to us.

MA/FPC are selling most of LA's in the game, as i understood your point of wiev is MA/FPC has not enough money in game which economy goes down and many players quiting. I guess its just talks, IMO this game has more than enough money inside, and no matter how mych they sell of theyr own property they allways have profits.
People can talk a lot, imagination and lie lvl is realy high, but proof of stats might allways be hiden. MA/FPC has created one of the bests games in the world, no matter what happens i am sure they will solve the problem. Altough, they are not using apportunity yet for TV commercial, they are not announcing them selfs too much, this stuff would absolutly bring A LOT of players, and i am sure everybody knows it, especialy MA/FPC themself.

So, lets just leave MA/FPC problems to them, without much discussing

PS: It was just my own opinion. GL

 

[TinyDancer]

This entire post is based off of assumtions...but yea plz try harder MA to bring some of out favorite old systems back.

 

[Raffaele Meiers]

Give me proof that MA is loosing more and more players every day ! I keep hearing this ,and have heard it for years and now I want some facts !!
You obviously have something to back up this statement with , yeah?

And if it was so easy to just put every system back and promoting the game bigtime I guess they would have done it already ?

As MA/FPC do not release actual numbers the best we have is Entropia Tracker.
There you see a decline in average globals from the beginning of 2009 until mid of 2010. It went up from this low point a bit as you can see on Starfinders Thread: "Entropia Tracker annual report 2010".

 

[Ionar]

As MA/FPC do not release actual numbers the best we have is Entropia Tracker.
There you see a decline in average globals from the beginning of 2010 until mid of 2011. It went up from this low point a bit as you can see on Starfinders Thread: "Entropia Tracker annual report 2010".

Entropia tracker now has data from the future? Cool!

 

[toad]

I have been around here since 2004 with 3 sellouts and inactive for longer periods, now im back again for the fourth time.
In all those years people have always said that EU has been losing players, in the economy crisis that was in 2008-2009 i think this might have been true but as the economy in the world gets better i guess we will se more and more players again.

About FPC losing money on Meduza, no chance in the world they lose money on that, selling land to the players like that are the best thing they ever can do, now they dont need to put any resourses at all except bug fixing in that area since Quetesh and the investors will do the hard work for them to get people hunting and mining there, over time they will make alot of money from that areas just like every other area they have that as hevily hunted and/or mined.

 

[Killahbee]

In all those years people have always said that EU has been losing players, in the economy crisis that was in 2008-2009 i think this might have been true but as the economy in the world gets better i guess we will se more and more players again.

About FPC losing money on Meduza, no chance in the world they lose money on that, selling land to the players like that are the best thing they ever can do, now they dont need to put any resourses at all except bug fixing in that area since Quetesh and the investors will do the hard work for them to get people hunting and mining there, over time they will make alot of money from that areas just like every other area they have that as hevily hunted and/or mined.

Lets hope we'll see more players
Over time they might, I wonder how many more "medusa like" LA's they are going to release in the future. Surely this won't be the last one?
There are too many LA's atm, and not enough DNA.

 

[Raffaele Meiers]

Entropia tracker now has data from the future? Cool!

ROFL, yeah somehow I have allways problems when the year changes...

Changed, thx

 

[Raffaele Meiers]

ROFL

Someone mentioned this to me in PM:

Sorry, but i am sure theres a thousands players are not registered to ET, so ET statement pfoos nothing

Very big ROFL, at someone who has here own agenda and obviously no knowledge how Entropia Tracker works.

So she prooved once again that she is only here to act as Agent Provocateur or see above.

PS: I think she ment proves not pfoos, am I right?