Next Island Paradise Zone Now Open for testing along with Club Neverdie Land Area and Theme Park

[Rumsponge]

I would like to nominate this thread for an award in the "Highest-Number-of-Individual-Dramas-in-One-Thread" category.

Seriously. Just try to count them all.

 

[kosmos]

People on this forum always ignore my questions.

How often are Betas of MMORPGS promoted?

thanks if i get a answer

kosmos

ps somewhere it was said NI is beta.

 

[MindStar9]

Yeah I saw that too, I am soooo confused. Even confused on the admins on the NI forum, they are actual players of EU too? Beginning to wonder if every friend of ND has a job with NI

Well ... not Next Island exclusively, but ROCKtropia, and ND Studios, yes. To sort things out for you with regard to the Admins at NI and RT ... Enzo at one forum, and Marius at the other is the same person (EnzoMarius) - I made that discovery myself from personal interaction, and not that long ago he split his name up and changed his name at each forum, probably to keep things more organized - don't know. And according to resources, there are RT/NI developers playing EU as regular avatars, yes. I have no issue with developers or staff playing on their planet, but only with official avatars, and not regular avatars that can personally benefit. When a person crosses over, like Skam did with FPC, then an official avatar takes over and the purpose of play is different ... I quite respected that.

My dilemma is, I learn things either on my own, or people voluntarily share information with me that I can't always post publicly, so it puts me in between a rock and a hard place when I really want to explain something to make sense out of it for the community. That's probably why some of my posting is so passionate, or why I might come across like a dog with a bone ... it's intentional. It's not always a good thing for me though, except with my personal writing IRL - that's where I have my exhale moments and collect my thoughts - sometimes.

EDIT:

To Kosmos ... I may not be able to answer your question completely, but I can tell you that the initial plan was for Next Island to be a beta launch on the 7th or 8th of Dec allowing Entropians an opportunity to experience the planet prior to the Jan 5th unveil at CES where the media would be introduced, but we would still be able to play during that period of time as well, and then ... the full public launch would be about the 3rd week in January.

Apparently (as told to me by someone), ND decided to launch the planet early without everything in place, and was personally showcasing his CND-2 island, without a proper Next Island introduction or any announcement whatsoever. It now seems as though more will be added for the Next Island portion of the planet for a different release on Friday as I understand it, because Wednesday's release seemed to have been all about ND's playground, which again seems quite strange since it's not his planet.

I am re-posting the message from David Post himself that he asked me to share with the community on
October 11th.

HERE IS DAVID'S MESSAGE TO THE COMMUNITY

"Hi everyone - this is David Post, Chairman and Chief Complaint Officer.

The delay in the launch dates is my doing. I know that Entropians have seen this before, but I made some difficult decisions based on what is good for us in the long-term.

So here's the scoop:

• We will open our Beta on Dec 7-8 so you all can play - it will not be publicized.
• We will have our trade launch - to the media at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 5th. This was the decision I made because we will have TV coverage then.
• We will announce and allow the media entry on Jan 5th at the Digital Experience Show at CES.
• We will have our consumer launch around the 3rd week of January 2011 with events in New York City and Los Angeles (maybe other places as well).

My reasoning is, that we make some impact which cannot occur in December, but can occur at CES. I did not want something almost finished, and then have to make excuses.

We do appreciate your patience, and hopefully will gain your support. I truly hope you will love Next Island and Time Travel.

David Post"

​

What happened between then and now with how it's going down right now is anyone's guess, but mine would be that since we knew nothing about ND's CND-2 island, he (ND) wanted to make it known to the community. And again, definitely not a proper any type of launch for this new planet that we've all been waiting for to explore. Sorry, but some people just need to steal the spotlight.

 

[Lavawalker]

AH ! the .... Conflict of Interests
And all that shouting I did about it on the forums a year ago

Back to the 9 to 5

What the hell, something I have learned over the years; and I will probably be flamed for saying so.

There are a lot of fucking stupid people in this world;
It just seems you meet more of them here in Entropia than IRL.

Counting in the so called developers & operators of Entropia there folks.

 

[AlphaGeek]

So... the moral of the story is:

Never let an attention whore be your dancing pig's agent.

 

[Razormat]

It is crucial that you see this.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eGQ5VFt7P4

I agree!

 

[AxeMurderer]

Both quotes from Agis. Which is the truth?
"Today (8.12.2010) we proudly present the new planet Next Island."
and later - o no we not present today we present 2 days later, today we only take your money
may be you had to write we proudly present NEVERDIE today

It was mentioned that a beta test was from the 8-9th and release in January but they pushed up the schedule to 10th December for launch.

08 Dec 2010
New Planet Discovered in Entropia Universe
Today we proudly present the new planet Next Island. This tropical paradise has exotic vegetation to explore and many new creatures to hunt.

Visit the planet website at Next Island.

 

[Lee]

So many threads on the subject, this post is sort of covering my thoughts on most of them. After this post I will only discuss NI on NI forum, same for any other planets as well, as I see PCF already muddied with confusion of people posting globals and discoveries etc in the normal sections on here when they didn't happen on Calypso. PCF is a Planet Calypso forum, and even though they have included an 'other planet' sub forum they have no obligation to do so and I kind of feel for the mods here now who have to sort through it all and try to keep it straight. There are existing forums for many of the other planets already, logic dictates discussion of those planets is best on those forums, at least for me.

Agis, I would like to say to you that though it sounds like you were attempting to be helpful yesterday on the forums, and ingame, where you answered questions and offered an awful lot of info, it was wrong of you to misrepresent yourself (which you clearly did) as an official community 'liaison' for NI when apparently you are not. This means anything you said on forums and ingame is now to be taken with a large grain of salt. No respect for that . More and more I for one rely on official sources only for any news or information, we don't need any more wannabes really.

What happened between then and now with how it's going down right now is anyone's guess, but mine would be that since we knew nothing about ND's CND-2 island, he (ND) wanted to make it known to the community.

I can't link you or quote anything this far down the line, but the fact that there was a Club Neverdie on NI and his own 'area' has been known almost from the beginning, maybe not widely publicized, but not secret either. Of course he wants it known to the community, and as his land area was ready to play it is there in the beta. I assume the MA update cancelled out the name branding on the asteroid so that all the globals we see from CND now are from NI but that is just an assumption without any news from officialdom. I remember that you responded to me in another thread asking if I thought it was morally 'right' for the developer to have his own land area on the planet, and I didn't respond there. My answer is really no, I don't think there is any morally wrong thing about that, he is also an investor in that planet, and I don't care if it was ND or Santa Clause really who built themselves a land area that clearly the planet owner approved of. I'm not going to get into all the personal issues about whether or not I like ND, his name branding, his ego, whatever, as it is not relevant to me as a game player. If I don't like a planet or an land area or whatever, I don't play on it. This is a personal choice and I have exercised it already by trying out new planets and then going on elsewhere when it didn't 'fit' for me, and I will continue this with any new planet. Personally, at this point in time anyway, I like the new planet, all of the areas available so far and look forward to seeing the main content. The bigger issues raised about morality, business ethics, conflict of interest, and clear changes in personal and business relations (since you for example used to be heavily involved in promoting the ND and CND brand in Entropia) etc are serious and best spoken to by those involved only.

The biggest fail I see in all this is lack of clear communication from NI that 'warned' the existing users a bit more that one private land area was active in this test phase launch but was not the main part of the new planet, but then again, if they had publicized all of that it would then not have been a very quiet beta period for existing users, so kind of a no win situation for them really. We can only hope that at some point sooner rather than later one or more of the people actually officially representing NI will speak on at least the NI forum about all of this, as there has been some hardcore criticism that is damaging to the game before it even launches officially, they are going to have to deal with that criticism. They are all fairly active on facebook and twitter etc and so far no mention of any of these 'difficulties' at all. This is a 'soft' beta launch and they aren't really looking to the existing players to populate the planet, but a different and new audience which they will seek when they feel ready, but the misunderstandings and negativity generated so early on by that existing community and some who are most vocal in it must be dealt with.

As for the timeline mentioned by MS9 above, David Post announced some time back that they were 'unveiling' the project for the games media in LA this Friday, and we have already downloaded ancient Greece in the 'dynamic content' so I expect more of the main world will be activated for that media preview. He also posted this news story today, which describes it as a 'quiet launch' http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/08/next-island-launches-its-time-travelers-virtual-world/ (side note from that article, seems the idea of MindArk now being a 'real' bank in Sweden is still out there, though most of us don't actually know what the hey is up with that situation currently)

It seems that basically the time line hasn't really changed so much on the launch of NI, the existing players of entropia get to play around with it in beta before they push the pr to the wider public, ND, who is the developer and an investor as well, made his own land area ready to play before the main content is all activated and many are upset about that, but I assume the planet partner and owner is aware of what is happening with his game since it is pretty important to him. I agree he may not have been prepared for the reaction against his venture if the beta opening for us featured NDs area so much, but hey, it's a nice planet, I look forward to seeing the main game as it comes online now.

My own personal take on it is that NI would have been better served by not giving the existing players an early peek like they did, as clearly they now have to do a public launch with all this negativity all over the forums etc, so ND did them no favors, he should know how deeply unpopular he is in here with many and this would be the reaction. This is a new situation in online gaming, and there will be lots of mistakes made, and hopefully lessons learned. A good first lesson for other planet partners to come from all of this is that no one name, whether ND or anyone else, should be seen to be 'everywhere' and with fingers in every pie, or attempting to be stuck in every pie. Also, do your own publicity, don't rely on the 'community', assign and make it clear who is who and who has the right to speak for your planet (and if needed who does not have the right to speak on your behalf).

(started writing this hours ago and got distracted afk, sorry if the time lapse means I missed much in the way of other posts in the meantime)

 

[AlphaGeek]

Both quotes from Agis. Which is the truth?

On the NI forum, the administrators have stated that Agis does not speak for Next Island's owners or developers. There's your truth.

 

[remontoire]

My own personal take on it is that NI would have been better served by not giving the existing players an early peek like they did, as clearly they now have to do a public launch with all this negativity all over the forums etc, so ND did them no favors, he should know how deeply unpopular he is in here with many and this would be the reaction. This is a new situation in online gaming, and there will be lots of mistakes made, and hopefully lessons learned. A good first lesson for other planet partners to come from all of this is that no one name, whether ND or anyone else, should be seen to be 'everywhere' and with fingers in every pie, or attempting to be stuck in every pie. Also, do your own publicity, don't rely on the 'community', assign and make it clear who is who and who has the right to speak for your planet (and if needed who does not have the right to speak on your behalf).

(started writing this hours ago and got distracted afk, sorry if the time lapse means I missed much in the way of other posts in the meantime)

See for example Planet Arkadia - they have already hired somebody to talk to the prospective / existing players. Not having this post in the 21st century is extremely dumb, the amount that things depend on communication is only increasing. Its not that it needs to be an exclusive post, it needs to have sufficient time allocated to the role.

 

[Agis]

I discussed it with Neverdie and Enzo - which obviously represent Next Island and Rocktropia and they said they understand i was trying to help my best with the information i had and had learned these past 3 years - Public and Privately communicated information, but i never said the word 'official' in any of my posts at all , but it came across to people that dont read the whole story properly as an official post - I was informed b4 the post was closed off on NextIslandLife. But have been backing David's vision for a LONG time and will help anytime i possibly can. Everything i wrote at the time was true and correct, all that info came from my hours of study of the storyline, previous beta logs, exploration of the WHOLE place which took hours before i even posted anything, yes i made some assumptions early, but why the hell didnt an actual community person hired by Neverdie Studios say a thing - because their are NONE atm, only Enzo which is Rocktropia's Marius, and Neverdie himself, man i have respect for all those people , but to leave people in the dark after the Softlaunch without any explanation officially - then someone who has been partially involved (cant say much more unfortunately) in the project these past 3 years comes and stands up as a community leader for the people (people need someone to give advice etc..) Help people out - Stand up and represent the true Next Island core - the people that play the game , neverdie didnt even know about the mobs missing off the mainland - I had to wake him up to the fact that there was a problem that no mobs were not spawning , (means loss of potential income for the company) that would of maybe not been realised for a couple of days - his response there was a sync problem on the servers preventing mobs from spawning and will be fixed (man mobs not spawning thats important !). Now they close of the only informational thread in existance on NextIslandLife which i think is appauling and the Rocktropia creators in fact have full control over Next Island forums, The NextIslandLife forums will not get popular under a brutal admistrator closing off threads that are helping out and not harming. In fact all information i will post will be on the Planet Calypso forum or Entropia Planets Forum peace !

 

[McCormick]

Oh my...good luck...

 

[safara]

the Rocktropia creators in fact have full control over Next Island forums

IP Address of www.neverdie.com
174.120.22.5

IP Address of www.nextislandlife.com
174.120.22.5

Yes, Neverdie's and Next Island's means of communication with their customers all come from the same place

 

[Dab]

Quoted from the Next Island Forum

Hello community to this exciting new planet in the Entropia Universe. I am a community liaison avatar for Next Island and greeting to all newcomers to Next Island ok the facts.

Hello community welcome to this exciting new planet in the Entropia Universe. I am a sort of a community leader for Next Island...

Im trying to help out the community as much as i can , even though and i stress this is not an official stance i have volunteered to help out as much as i can...

Never said i was official spokesperson I have been involved on an unofficial level for over 3 years on this planet like cyrene and arkadia when it comes i will study every aspect...

I discussed it with Neverdie and Enzo - which obviously represent Next Island and Rocktropia and they said they understand i was trying to help my best with the information i had and had learned these past 3 years - Public and Privately communicated information, but i never said the word 'official' in any of my posts at all , but it came across to people that dont read the whole story properly as an official post...

Agis has finished his stint as a 'Taliban negotiator' and has now taken on the role of community liaison avatar.

 

[AlphaGeek]

"There are no Americans in Baghdad! Never!"

LOL

 

[Karmic]

People on this forum always ignore my questions.

How often are Betas of MMORPGS promoted?

thanks if i get a answer

kosmos

ps somewhere it was said NI is beta.

To answer your question quite frequently but not always. Frequently though the characters in a beta are wiped or alternate characters not the ones you'll have when the game or section of the game is officially launched. If I remember correctly Planetside Beta was an exception, we kept our characters and xp but it was fairly short and most people maxed out pretty quickly anyway.

 

[dargonstar]

does this mean apartments are for sale on next island?

 

[Agis]

does this mean apartments are for sale on next island?

They are like beach houses, or shacks. But i personally believe they wont go up for sale until after the expo in january. David Post said himself he is targeting mostly the 'noob' or new player base focusing on non-gamers as well as gamers, so obviously the shacks or beach front-houses will not be for sale until after the media launch in january, only mainly entropia players on at the moment and that is not his target audience.

 

[Hanne|SDS]

Agis, have you actually cleared this information with the developers of NI? From your second last post it sounds like you are leaking information which is not supposed to go to the public (yet).

Make no mistake that if such is the case, I will shut this down here on PCF as well.

 

[McCormick]

Agis, have you actually cleared this information with the developers of NI? From your second last post it sounds like you are leaking information which is not supposed to go to the public (yet).

Make no mistake that if such is the case, I will shut this down here on PCF as well.

Hillarious....just....hillarious.... -_-

 

[MindStar9]

Agis, have you actually cleared this information with the developers of NI? From your second last post it sounds like you are leaking information which is not supposed to go to the public (yet).

Make no mistake that if such is the case, I will shut this down here on PCF as well.

Agis is not an official spokesperson for NI or the development team (which has already been established), and Agis is only rendering a personal opinion and speculating (I believe) based on his avid reading about the planet. There's nothing he has said in his post that is secretive or confidential. He has a unique way of presenting his posts, and I don't know why I didn't pick up on this before.

I see him as a big fan of this universe, and wanting to share how he envisions things happening, as well as wanting to be helpful to the community with his knowledge, which is attained on his own by being tuned in (I too was too judgmental about this in the beginning), but I don't think he is giving away the shop or anything of the sort, so there's no need to threaten to shut down this thread. I just think his approach is misunderstood, but of course, he can speak for himself, this is just my opinion after going back and reading all of his posts here and elsewhere.

 

[Razormat]

Maybe on Wikileaks there is something about Next Island.

I still think this is of the utmost importance:

It is crucial that you see this.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eGQ5VFt7P4

 

[Agis]

Agis, have you actually cleared this information with the developers of NI? From your second last post it sounds like you are leaking information which is not supposed to go to the public (yet).

Make no mistake that if such is the case, I will shut this down here on PCF as well.

No ..he told me personally and im just sharing with the community the situation of the mob problems, he didnt say to me not to say anything - man whats with this getting flack on all fronts and all im doing is trying to help - why do i bother, im here to help thats all..I have not leaked any secret or in confidence information or done anything wrong, in no way have i mentioned any official info whatsoever, just mostly by observations and from study. If you dont want me to post any info i find out then i wont.

 

[Smoerble]

I don't understand, how people who invest so much money and time into the dev of a planet... can make such a BIG and OBVIOUS fail.

About 50% of the people in this forum are are pissed off (sorry) how Next Island starts: they don't like to see ND all over a new planet (even though it's not all over), they wanted to see a new planet and not something they know in parts from Rocktropia and some are annoyed that the planet is not a new planet, it's more "a new planet and a playground for ND".

But if you summarize it: all this is only because of lack of communication!

Imagine 2 months ago we were told: ND will have his club and own property on NI.
No-one would have cared.

So pelase everyone: send mails to every planet partner with content like "please work as a normal game company: release as many informations as possible as early as possible. This is how you make fans and how you set expectations right!"

 

[Agis]

Agis is not an official spokesperson for NI or the development team (which has already been established), and Agis is only rendering a personal opinion and speculating (I believe) based on his avid reading about the planet. There's nothing he has said in his post that is secretive or confidential. He has a unique way of presenting his posts, and I don't know why I didn't pick up on this before.

I see him as a big fan of this universe, and wanting to share how he envisions things happening, as well as wanting to be helpful to the community with his knowledge, which is attained on his own by being tuned in (I too was too judgmental about this in the beginning), but I don't think he is giving away the shop or anything of the sort, so there's no need to threaten to shut down this thread. I just think his approach is misunderstood, but of course, he can speak for himself, this is just my opinion after going back and reading all of his posts here and elsewhere.

Thank you for understanding i really appreciate it - sorry just saw hanne's post and was quick to react, Most times i post like a newspaper article - just the way i am if you have seen previous posts in the past - it might be because the way my brain works (don't want to elaborate, sorry), but if you have seen past posts from years back the way - I present my info in the same type and fashion

 

[NoBion]

I don't understand, how people who invest so much money and time into the dev of a planet... can make such a BIG and OBVIOUS fail.

About 50% of the people in this forum are are pissed off (sorry) how Next Island starts: they don't like to see ND all over a new planet (even though it's not all over), they wanted to see a new planet and not something they know in parts from Rocktropia and some are annoyed that the planet is not a new planet, it's more "a new planet and a playground for ND".

But if you summarize it: all this is only because of lack of communication!

Imagine 2 months ago we were told: ND will have his club and own property on NI.
No-one would have cared.

So pelase everyone: send mails to every planet partner with content like "please work as a normal game company: release as many informations as possible as early as possible. This is how you make fans and how you set expectations right!"

I only got one thing to say...

Do more like Planet arkadia. They have very good communications with their fans or upcomming userbase on their forum.

Something FPC and Next island and also Rocktropia could all learn off. More communication with your userbase has alot of benefits. Including happy customers... Customers having more trust in you. And a better experience for everyone. And why they have been bad at this so far is only a big question to be remained...

Looking forward to Planet arkadia. And im far from the only one who thinks this will be the first REAL planet to be added. By REAL i meen the first planet & Developers who show true care for their userbase by communicating and sharing informations to keep everyone immersed

 

[Psychopathic]

I only got one thing to say...

Do more like Planet arkadia. They have very good communications with their fans or upcomming userbase on their forum.

Something FPC and Next island and also Rocktropia could all learn off. More communication with your userbase has alot of benefits. Including happy customers... Customers having more trust in you. And a better experience for everyone. And why they have been bad at this so far is only a big question to be remained...

Looking forward to Planet arkadia. And im far from the only one who thinks this will be the first REAL planet to be added. By REAL i meen the first planet & Developers who show true care for their userbase by communicating and sharing informations to keep everyone immersed

Oh, I agree! Planet Arkadia, as it looks now, is definitely the planet I will take my white ass to and build a home on! Planets like ROCKtropia and the amateuristic opening of Next Island makes' this game look so amateuristic and unserious. It's bad publicity, and it's not okay to bite the hand that feeds you (and we are the ones' feeding NEVERDIE company, FPC and MA).

 

[Infinity01]

and a great way you pay them back for giving you an exclusive interview by going to every forum you can and posting 10 times over that it's "disgusting". Shows how fickle you are. I hope other planet partners keep this in mine when giving you an interview.

I think what MS9 did is the right thing to do.
If they have promised something (already published i guess), and then they have done things differently... she has the right to tell that too... if she is playing a reporting rule she is supposed to do just that.,,,

 

[Infinity01]

oh thank you so much post this!!!

KITTEN HAPPY XD

oh and kitten has no issue with the island girl one thats one heck of a tribute

Actually Island girl concept is one of the few things i like at club ND...Actually it's a great idea......and should be appreciated as such

 

[Smoerble]

I think what MS9 did is the right thing to do.
If they have promised something (already published i guess), and then they have done things differently... she has the right to tell that too... if she is playing a reporting rule she is supposed to do just that.,,,

Yes, definately. It would be stupid, to shut your mouth, only, because you get an interveiw... I mean: an interview is good for them, so they better are thankful to reporters, not the other way around.