DiabloP
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- Dec 4, 2011
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- Diablo DiabloP Minotaur
WARNING: Long read. You might want to grab a drink, take a dump or bring the kids to bed before you go on.
Fellow Entropians,
I'd like to share a story with you. Once you are done reading I would appreciate if some of you join in on a constructive(!) discussion about a problem I ran into last week.
The Story
First of all, I need your imagination.
Imagine a funfair at the outskirts of a city. Not much traffic passing by, but if you stay at the fence, you can hear always some people screaming and laughing - and that for about a decade meanwhile. The whole compound is divided into 5 different rides. Each of them has its own entry and they all share a big unkempt meadow in the middle, where parents use to drop off their tedious kids.
Ride #1 is a giant rollercoaster, with looping, corkscrew, a photo booth and a few trees around. There is always a big group of people taking one turn after another, screaming of excitement or puking cause they couldn't handle the ups and downs. Every now and then a gentle cleaning robot shows up and wipes up the puke. The owner of this ride is making a pretty penny, which allows him to repair parts of really necessary.
Ride #2 is a haunted house. It looks spooky from the outside, with all its demons and devils trying to grab you and has a huge interior, which alone makes it scary as one can get easily lost in there. On a regular day there is mostly just a bunch of people in there. Income wise the owner is somehow keeping his head above water, but nobody really knows how.
Ride #3 is an abandoned Ferris wheel. Due to being to restrictive to enter - no shoes allowed, need to wear a hat, if you bring your girlfriend you have to bring her mother too - there have never been many customers in he past. One day they cut the power supply as the owner couldn't pay his bills anymore. Rumour has it, that he died on top of the wheel in his seat while taking a lonely ride when that happened. Meanwhile its overrun by monkeys from a near zoo and slowly falling apart. Once a month some teenagers are messing around with those monkeys, but I don't want you to imagine what they actually do with them.
Ride #4 is a huge sandpit. You can have fun on the slide, the climbing frames or dig in the sand for lost goods - bottle caps, used syringes, pacifiers, half licked lollypops ... to name a few. The place is usually not overcrowded but a small community arose amongst the beach enthusiasts. The owner of the ride is breaking even and adds a new attraction once in a while.
Ride #5 is a fancy laser tag arena which is, even though still under construction, already open for costumers. While laser tag is not the newest invention on the market, the owner somehow managed to come up with a new and very entertaining concept and tries to keep it fair for every one. Although that sounds quite appealing, people who are giving it a try mostly struggle enjoying it as much as it was proposed at the entry, simply because they cant rally big enough teams. And the optional holographic targets move around to fast or get stuck on a daisy, so that not many give them a try. Future will tell if this ride will use its full potential and become successful or becomes another "DO the monkey" arena of those teenagers I mentioned earlier and now made you imagine what they do nevertheless.
All of these 5 rides need to pay their employees, repair teams and not to forget the cleaning lady. Additionally a percentage of their income goes to the landlord of the area the funfair is placed on. In order to pay all these people the different owners try to advertise their own rides in the city. But being unfamiliar with proper marketing and not working together to build a decent road to the funfair with one shared entrance, its usually the visitors of the rollercoaster who come over to the other rides when they get bored.
The landlord however is either busy fixing holes in the fences, finding a new spot for another ride, frolicking his hobby to paint castles or enjoys a looong holiday trip others can only dream of.
Now lets call this funfair Entropia Universe.
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A big thank you from my side if you managed to read all the above. I for one had great fun writing it.
Before we head on to the discussion of the - in my opinion - major problem I mentioned in the beginning, let me set a few things straight.
I like this game, enjoy it within my limits and have no intention to let this thread turn into the usual bitch-festival. If you have no constructive input or want to discuss something else than the following problem create your own thread. Thank you.
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The Problem
At the moment we have 5 different planets, each of them fighting for their own existence. Whenever a player decides to give EU a try he/she has to choose between one of these planets in the very beginning. Last week I went for some missions to Cyrene and while I was restocking near the HQ TP a green dot popped up every now and then. Most of the times however I was alone at the terminals and out in the fields as well.
Anyways it happened twice that an out of the box player asked in local chat for help. First I was happy to see, that there are still new people downloading EU. But I realised pretty quick, that for them Cyrene is not the right place to start, simply because they would be alone on a huge server without help, no working market and most important no clue about what's going on. I think one could say this about Rocktropia (maybe) and Next Island as well. Arkadia seems to have overcome the critical point and is slowly growing.
So my 2 options at that point where either to mind my own business (which I absolutely prefer) or ... what?
I brought both of them to Calypso and had a nice long chat with them, explaining the basics and, well the stuff you do with newbies, the stuff I (maybe all of us) where so thankful when we were once new.
Was it helpful for them? We´ll see in the future. Maybe they stick around, enjoy the game we play and who knows they might travel back to Cyrene and have some fun there as well.
Was it helpful for Cyrene? I guess not. I just stole 2 people they lured in with their advertisement and put them on a planet that is already well populated.
Was it helpful for Entropia as a whole? And that's my problem. I think it was good. These 2 people might stay in the game, rather than getting frustrated on an empty planet and leave us for good before they even really joined. But if we keep doing it this way, than any new planet will sooner or later struggle if not supported by a decent amount of already existing players. And more important, we waste willing people who we are all crying for so that the whole entropian community may grow.
Even though my home is Calypso, I like the diversity other planets can bring in. And not to forget, the more the merrier.
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The Discussion
How can this be solved? Who has to be addressed with this topic?
I had a chat in my soc and here is what we came up with so far:
- Allow new players to TP between planets for the first 2 weeks. This would include a detailed explanation of how to do it and what to expect. Items able to be carried around would have to be limited to rewards from starter missions and things you can buy from the TT to minimize alt avas having a cheap and safe transportation in space
- A help channel universe wide, or guides like Simon and Emma on each planet who welcome and help new players getting started.
- Your input here ... Maybe we can gather some good ideas and send them to MA and the PP. Who knows, they might at least read them before throwing in the bin.
Now I'd like to thank you once more for spending your precious time reading this wall of text and wish you a happy Sunday!
-Lopho
I don't know why people think caly is the best planet to start on!!! Take for example hunting. New players have no chance at breaking even hunting on caly. They would have to swunt if they are interested in that profession. But RT has vixens, which are a profit from the very beginning, I know arkadia has some low level mobs that are also profitable.
or mining for example. RT has Alternative rocks that can be found easily with TT gear and it normally has an Mu of 132~140%. I was mining on caly with average depth of 1200+ and couldn't even get close to the MU i was getting on RT with TT gear.
Basically planet partners have a lot of opportunities for new players, someones just gotta show them around
