Question: Why are you here? (select 2 reasons why you play EU)

[Legends]

This is a 2 part Survey - I need you to answer BOTH questions please!!

1. Why are you here? or, asked another way: Why do you play Entropia?

Please look over all the answer choices, and pick the main reason why you play Entropia today. If the reason you joined Entropia is different than the reason why you play Entropia today, please select the one answer that reflects the reason why you play Entropia today, not the reason why you joined initially.

If you are torn between 2 of the choices available, you can pick both of them, otherwise, just pick the one statement that reflects most accurately why you play Entropia.

Next, there is a follow-up question, this Poll has 2 parts to it. Please answer the next question as well (see below)

2. What type of Entropia Participant are you?

Pretty straight forward, just pick the one that fits best what type of activity you mostly indulge in when logged into Entropia.

EDIT:
Some people seem to be having a hard time with this 2nd question. Some would like to be able to check them all off because they do them all, but I think there's some misunderstanding so I'll clarify:

#1. Hunter:
If the main thing you focus on is hunting, just pick this one. Even if you do a little bit of mining and crafting as part of daily missions or something, if you are primarily a hunter, please just pick this one and don't bother with the rest.

#2. Miner:
If you spend most of your logged in time mining or doing something that is involved with mining (crafting amps for yourself as an example), then you're a miner, just pick that one.

#3. Crafter:
If you are stuck at the crafting machine whenever you are logged in and pretty much never move from there, you are clearly a crafter, so pick that one.

People who say they do all 3 don't understand this question. You are not really all 3. Maybe you craft your own guns or your own mining amps, that doesn't mean that crafting is your main activity in the game. Only if you are stuck at the crafting machine from the time that you log in to the time that you log out, then yes, you are a crafter. If every other day you craft some guns for yourself and some friends, then, for the purposes of this poll, you are a hunter, not a crafter.

And if you really do all 3 (I know some people do), then please just pick the one you are highest skilled in.

#4. Trader:
I think almost everyone in the game is open to doing a little trading if the opportunity presents itself, though they might not be willing to admit it. Those who should pick #4 are those that do nothing else but stand at Twin and spam #calytrade and check the auction all day.

#5. Investor:
A lot of people do hold a certain number of Deeds. You would only pick #5 if that's really all you did and you didn't do anything else in the game. Really, the only people answering this poll who should be picking #5 are the Land Area owners who logged into this forum to advertise an event on their Land and happened to see this Poll.

#6. Ship Operator:
When I say Ship Operators, I mean that their main activity in the game is Warping people around or just organizing and doing a lot of Robot Incursions back to back like Avarupter was doing for a while. I think of SoReal and others, who used to primarily do VIP warps. He was hunting too but as soon as he had a customer, he'd drop everything and just go. So only pick #6 if your primary activity is as a space taxi (or operating an MS or Privateer for Robot Incursions).

#7. Shop Owner
For #7, some people have a lot of shops to the point where there isn't any time to do anything else. I think of Miks for example, myself. We do crafting too, but we do it to stock the shops, so in the end, all of our Entropia activity revolves around being a Shop owner, so I have no choice but to pick that one. If a hunter has a shop and just places random loot in there, then I wouldn't call them a shop owner, I'd call them a hunter with a shop. So they should pick #1, not #7.

#8: Non-Depositors
Those are the people that mainly Sweat, Heal or walk Fruits and Stones.

--
Notes:
1. This is a 2 part Survey, please answer both questions
2. In this Poll, you can select 1 or 2 answers for why you play Entropia, and 1 answer in the 2nd part (your profession/activity in EU)
3. Your votes are private
4. You can change your votes later if you realize you made a mistake
5. This Poll will never close, it is a persistent customer survey of sorts

 

[DrGirlfriend]

I don’t believe anyone who doesn’t pick option 2 (RCE)

 

[TheOneOmega]

What is the rationale to have two questions in one poll like this? With private votes you won't be able to stratify on answers to the second, right?

 

[NevadaJake]

Needs to allow us to "Check all that apply".

 

[jetsina]

Maybe needs a rethink on this one if it is to last a long time. Most options apply to me and I don't really want to limit myself, or say I have a main area.
I could say I'm here for nostalgic reasons because of what EU was like 15 years ago when I started - and the RCE element, but that is selling it short. I'm also here as part of what computing may mean to people in future RL society, how VR worlds and our own minds develop.

On the second question, I am Legion... (Red Dwarf insider joke). I am like a gestallt entity, an amalgam of the options on your list...
Very few people can claim to be spaceship operators, by the way, so isn't it strange to include it? I am a spaceship pilot, though (when in space).

 

[Legends]

What is the rationale to have two questions in one poll like this? With private votes you won't be able to stratify on answers to the second, right?

Need to have some sort of reference as to the participation, whether it's varied or concentrated or heavy in any particular game activity. For example, if 50% of people who voted in this poll were shop owners, traders and investors, then of course we can understand when the results on the first question are leaning heavy on #4 For the Markup! (to make money).

If I only did the first question on it's own, with Votes being private, it would be impossible to find a bias, if there is one there.

And the votes are private because I am a bit worried if some might not want to admit certain things publicly and therefore abstain from voting, so I made the votes private so people can feel safe in voting.

PS: Already we can kind of see that the distribution is a bit skewed with 11 Hunters and 5 non-Hunters, if we were to take that at face value, then we are assuming that 69% of participants hunt and the rest, 31% do not hunt... Does that seem right? I doubt that. So we just need to take that into account because those that use this forum tend to be more business savvy then your average EU participant, I think.

 

[Legends]

Maybe needs a rethink on this one if it is to last a long time. Most options apply to me and I don't really want to limit myself, or say I have a main area.
I could say I'm here for nostalgic reasons because of what EU was like 15 years ago when I started - and the RCE element, but that is selling it short. I'm also here as part of what computing may mean to people in future RL society, how VR worlds and our own minds develop.

On the second question, I am Legion... (Red Dwarf insider joke). I am like a gestallt entity, an amalgam of the options on your list...
Very few people can claim to be spaceship operators, by the way, so isn't it strange to include it? I am a spaceship pilot, though (when in space).

There is option #8 Other (please share), you can pick that one

But I think it would be useful if you could figure out the main reasons and place your vote in the survey so we can see in the end what is the main aspect of EU that retains participation in the long run..

 

[jetsina]

I did choose #9 (other) for the second question, and settled on the top two for q1, and explained why it's not really broad enough, though. The only answer that doesn't apply at all appears to be the key mapping one... All the other answers are true to whatever degree . I also don't not want an ATH - I'll gladly take one, but ok, that's also only a very minor reason...
To share a bit of cynicism and another 'insider', there is a very old British tv series called the Likely Lads. It's about the changing world, modernisation of many a town and city in the 1970s, and how the two main characters viewed such changes in society as well. The title song includes a wonderful line about nostalgia: "It's the only thing to look forward to: the past."

I instantly thought of that when thinking about ticking the first option of question one. Sorry for the deep sharing for those of you who don't know the reference, but it might be interesting for some people to watch if you are also interested in societies: what that used to mean, what it means now, and what it may do in the future. Thanks

 

[jambon]

Poll could use a little work...

What originally attracted me to EU?
The notion of a real cash economy and the potential that I could earn money at it. At the time I had no money or income so I was excited at the thought of this world to explore and figure out. To see if I could find a way to make an income instead of working at a job.

What type of entropian am I?
Honestly, I've been all the above during my 16 year life in game. Originally I focused on mining, then trading and then hunting. But how I approach the game changes all the time.

Why am I still here?
Well, the plan to make this my sole income never panned out. And honestly, sometimes the game feels like I'm in an abusive relationship I can't get away from. I keep getting kicked in the balls with losses but I keep coming back cause I think this time will be different lol

I don't quite know exactly why I keep coming back. I know EU will never pay me close to a livable wage and all big loots are always fleeting but 16 years has been a decent chunk of my adult life and at this point it's kind of a hobby thats just part of who I am.

At this point I mostly play with the hope of reaching personally set goals. I've got a gambler streak in me and I guess I've always got that hope, that itch, to sometimes roll the dice hoping for massive loot. In general when I do get lucky it just gets rolled back in to more play time. I still find money goes way further here than at the casino lol

 

[Legends]

Needs to allow us to "Check all that apply".

Yeah I understand that some people would like to be able to just check off all the ones that apply but ultimately it will be more helpful to know the main reason or 2 main reasons why someone plays EU. If I allow people to just check all that apply, we won't be able to see which ones are the main reasons.

So for the sake of the data, people who vote here will need to think about it and figure out which one of these reasons weighs the most when it comes to continuing participation in Entropia.

That way once the votes are in we can look at it and say "Ok, so the biggest factor is this", and since I'm allowing everyone to pick 2, it should give us a decent level of confidence on the second most successful aspect of EU.

 

[Legends]

Poll could use a little work...

I originally had a list of 12 reasons and still writing down more even though at the time, this new forum was only allowing 8 poll choices. I messaged 711 and had him increase the limit to 20.

While I was putting all the finishing touches on it I realized that none of the survey data would have any usefulness unless it could somehow be linked to what kind of Entropia participant actually voted in it, i.e. were they all hunters? Or were they mostly traders, investors, shop owners? That would matter, especially in such a sample size, because it would not be representative of the community and it would skew the data.

So at the last minute I decided, for the sake of having data that has meaning and value at the end, to use 10 or so of the 20 possible poll choices for identifying what kinds of players actually voted in the poll. And so that is why I ultimately had to boil it all down to the choices that are there now.

If you think you can do a better job of it, then by all means, I won't be offended if you went ahead and did your own.

What originally attracted me to EU?
The notion of a real cash economy and the potential that I could earn money at it. At the time I had no money or income so I was excited at the thought of this world to explore and figure out. To see if I could find a way to make an income instead of working at a job.

That's not part of this poll, that question is not being asked here.

What type of entropian am I?
Honestly, I've been all the above during my 16 year life in game. Originally I focused on mining, then trading and then hunting. But how I approach the game changes all the time.

What is your main activity in game now? That is what I was looking for. Because people will answer this poll mostly from the viewpoint of that activity that they are engaged in now, not really from viewpoints of the past. For example, I don't think you would answer the 1st question from the viewpoint you had when you were a shop owner on RT, that was a long time ago and you are not a shop owner now. So you would answer question #1 from the viewpoint of a hunter probably, since that is what you log in to do these days, I'm assuming.

Why am I still here?
Well, the plan to make this my sole income never panned out. And honestly, sometimes the game feels like I'm in an abusive relationship I can't get away from. I keep getting kicked in the balls with losses but I keep coming back cause I think this time will be different lol

I don't quite know exactly why I keep coming back. I know EU will never pay me close to a livable wage and all big loots are always fleeting but 16 years has been a decent chunk of my adult life and at this point it's kind of a hobby thats just part of who I am.

At this point I mostly play with the hope of reaching personally set goals. I've got a gambler streak in me and I guess I've always got that hope, that itch, to sometimes roll the dice hoping for massive loot. In general when I do get lucky it just gets rolled back in to more play time. I still find money goes way further here than at the casino lol

Well I understand that, and I wanted to cover that in the initial poll choices I had but it seemed a bit too cynical and I'm sure that MA wouldn't appreciate that kind of poll in here so that kind of cynicism just all disappeared when I boiled down the poll choices to the current 8 possible choices.

But the question still remains I think: Why do you log in? What do you hope to get out of EU when you turn in? Just miss your friends? Just want to escape real life? Want to go hunting and maybe get a Rare token this time?

Any of those IS covered under the Poll choices I've given above, yes they are vague, and I'm sorry about that, but once the results are in, we can do a follow up survey and break it down some more and get more accurate data.

I have to work with the tools I'm given here, as limiting as they are. But the good news is I have done a lot of surveys and am actually pretty good at it

All you have to do is answer the question as best you can. Pick the one that is the closest to the real reason you're still here in EU. And please let us know what is your current profession.

PS: if after thinking about it you come to the realization that you feel you are trapped here and that the truth is, if you could sell out all your skills and just cash out once and for all, you would, then you could always just pick 8. Other (please share). You don't actually have to share the real reasons, but at the end of it all, the number of people picking 8. Other, is relevant and useful data.

PPS: "EU is cheaper than the casino" was one of my poll choices initially but MA does not want Entropia associated with gambling, they have made that clear before. So pick "8. Other" if that's your final answer.

 

[jetsina]

Ok, I think I've found my main #other answer that I can give; I'm a daily mission doer.
That makes me #1, 2 and 3 (main profs). Various planets now have extensive low/medium level dailies, even pet tamer, fruit/stones gatherer and sweater are included.
I'm #4 when on Caly and the AH provides enough volume and niches to trade.
I'm #5 (deeds) and #7 (shop), so get income that combines with the low turnovers (spending) usually required for daily missions to enable #8 (no active depositing).
I've mentioned #6 already, that I pilot a ship when spending time in space.

I could imagine that lots of people can say they are still codex followers, so hunt whatever mobs improve their meta codex best wherever they happen to be.
Thus, missions and codex could be important overall reasons not included in the poll answers (codex might be part of the reason why hunting is so popular, but only part, ok).

 

[Legends]

Ok, I think I've found my main #other answer that I can give; I'm a daily mission doer.
That makes me #1, 2 and 3 (main profs). Various planets now have extensive low/medium level dailies, even pet tamer, fruit/stones gatherer and sweater are included.

Do you really do all 3 equally? Which one are you highest skilled in? Doing dailies is fine but I think most people usually identify with one particular profession more than the other 2.

I'm #4 when on Caly and the AH provides enough volume and niches to trade.

I think almost everyone in the game is open to doing a little trading if the opportunity presents itself, though they might not be willing to admit it. Those who should pick #4 are those that do nothing else but stand at Twin and spam #calytrade and check the auction all day.

I'm #5 (deeds) and #7 (shop), so get income that combines with the low turnovers (spending) usually required for daily missions to enable #8 (no active depositing).

Again, a lot of people do hold a certain number of Deeds. You would only pick #5 if that's really all you did and you didn't do anything else in the game. Really, the only people answering this poll who should be picking #5 are the Land Area owners who logged into this forum to advertise an event on their Land and happened to see this Poll.

For #7, some people have a lot of shops to the point where there isn't any time to do anything else. I think of Miks for example, myself. We do crafting too, but we do it to stock the shops, so in the end, all of our Entropia activity revolves around being a Shop owner, so I have no choice but to pick that one. If a hunter has a shop and just places random loot in there, then I wouldn't call them a shop owner, I'd call them a hunter with a shop. So they should pick #1, not #7.

I've mentioned #6 already, that I pilot a ship when spending time in space.

When I say Ship Operators, I mean that their main activity in the game is Warping people around or just organizing and doing a lot of Robot Incursions back to back. I think of SoReal and others, who used to primarily do VIP warps. He was hunting too but as soon as he had a customer, he'd drop everything and just go. So only pick if your primary activity is as a space taxi.

I could imagine that lots of people can say they are still codex followers, so hunt whatever mobs improve their meta codex best wherever they happen to be.
Thus, missions and codex could be important overall reasons not included in the poll answers (codex might be part of the reason why hunting is so popular, but only part, ok).

Codex is #1, hunter. Codex is only for hunting so properly belongs at #1: Hunter.

I'm only interested in the MAIN activity that a player is involved in.

 

[Alina]

I play EU to show how autistic I am on Rookie chat.

 

[Legends]

I play EU to show how autistic I am on Rookie chat.

So you would pick "8. Other (please share)"

 

[Mika]

Entropia was one of the first MMO's i ever touched as a teenager. To young back then to even legally depo i still figured out a way.

I remember the olden old days of ancient times, and i still love and miss those times when i think about them. Now with more knowledge, i know that if i could go back it would not be the same at all, but the memories are fantastic.

Will never. ever forget sweating daikiba and berries that you aggroed in the dunes next to PA, sprinted towards PA again where a large square clipping ledge meant the mobs got stick, sweat them to your hearts content without them ever getting to you. Big voodoo onga bonga energy.


Just the whole looks and feel of the game. Aside of several breaks through the years from longer to shorter my teenager self dropped away for a few years coming back in 09, and staying for a while, this is where my villain arc began and people started to fume and hate my every atom because of my dumb fuck luck.

Stopped playing entierly around 12-13 iirc and cashed out and did not think id be able to play again, due to irl stuff.

Returning again in 21, and since 21 my quest has been to get what i used to have back then, I spent a year of PMing people, and litterally having to become a private detective to hunt down people and find clues and leads of figuring out where my armor had gone. But I found it eventually. To many the armor always just looks like "you want fries with that", has nothing special about it, "meh stats" but to me being the owner of a unique armor set again has more value than anything. Given i'm not to opposed about offers of 750k or up I would at least consider it at then. (its not true unique, 2 sets exist but the second one has not seen the face of the sun supposedly since more than half a decade ago. And may be broken appart if the owner tried using the single only other set, to tier up in the old system of tiering.)

and to get a 5 digit hunting hof of any kind. I couldnt give a rats ass about profit, and it would only be put back into stuff id blow on hookers and blow and have fun while it lasts, but that is my only goal atm. And i'm doing everything 100% wrong to get it with loot 2.0 being ass. Given on and off for so long, i've always been a hunter, hunted most things (excluding new uber mobs and PP uber mobs) lending gear to just try things for fun. But the only time i seem to ever be lucky is when i accidentally fall onto a crafting machine and do some "moron" clicks, or "oops i attached a massive amp on a finder and accidentally dropped some bombs i could not afford".

I fucking hate this piece of a shit game, but i love it too. I want to see it do well, and become better, and see things be nicer and good. But man, fuck this awfull c**** of a s***** piece of a**** s**** w**** thing sometimes

 

[jetsina]

@Legends: Ok, you've tried to clarify things quite a bit to me a couple of posts up and edited the OP quite a bit as well, thank you.
It still looks to me like a 'first past the post' electoral system and not 'proportional representation' one. Also, what I currently do is not indicated by my skill gains from the past, for example. What most people might answer is fine for them, but I was trying to show that I don't see myself in the way that any answer apart from 'other' represents. Plus, the what and the why may not be as clearly in the driving seat as one might think. My mission junkie answer is me accepting that I'm 'mostly' daily-mission-driven at the moment.
I also do weekly tree harvesting (again there are missions), so I currently don't have a 'most' (time?, turnover?), but a series of ballpark 20%-ers. I guess that 'higher than anything else' is indeed hunting, so the deer horns constituency duly goes to the candidate from that, but actually 'representative' of me it is not.
I'm fine with just ending up as a statistic, though, but as your polls have been so good in the past, I've tried to get to grips with this one too!

 

[jambon]

If you think you can do a better job of it, then by all means, I won't be offended if you went ahead and did your own.

lol I don't have an interest in making my own poll.

All I'm saying is you've got a bunch of overlap in the poll and I don't think you can really pinpoint the answer to your questions of "why are you here" with a cut and dried answer. And forcing people to only pick their top reason isn't going to give any sort of accurate actionable data. The results from the poll are already shaping up to be what anyone that's been playing this game for a few years would come to expect based on the options available. Sorry, perhaps I'm just missing what the intended goal is for this data.

What originally attracted me to EU?
The notion of a real cash economy and the potential that I could earn money at it. At the time I had no money or income so I was excited at the thought of this world to explore and figure out. To see if I could find a way to make an income instead of working at a job.

That's not part of this poll, that question is not being asked here.

Well you're asking "why are you here?" and "why do you play Entropia?". If you're asking "why am I playing right now?" the answer is because I've got some free time and wanted to take part in Mayhem with the hope of a big loot. Neither are options in the poll. If you're asking a typical new player the answer is probably pretty clear - it's the money that attracted them. Cause let's face is, it's not the engaging story, active combat, puzzles, amazing graphics or other elements common in most games that just don't exist here. You put EU against any other MMO and it loses in every category except for the fact real money is involved. You don't need a poll to discover that lol

But if you're looking for more of an understanding of motivation of why I'm here in the first place and chose to play and continue to play EU you're not going to get any useful data from a basic poll like this. The answer of why I'm here is multi-faceted and involves the reason why I came in the first place.

Mindark has a real problem with this too - they think the answer to the mystery of what makes EU a success is something easily definable and replicated but it's not. As demonstrated by their many failed attempts at improvements to the game in an effort to attract new players and keep people sticking around. If they truly understood you'd think that after 20 years they would have a much larger active player base and be more wildly known.

What is your main activity in game now? That is what I was looking for. Because people will answer this poll mostly from the viewpoint of that activity that they are engaged in now, not really from viewpoints of the past. For example, I don't think you would answer the 1st question from the viewpoint you had when you were a shop owner on RT, that was a long time ago and you are not a shop owner now. So you would answer question #1 from the viewpoint of a hunter probably, since that is what you log in to do these days, I'm assuming.

Rule #1 when doing research - don't make assumptions lol. Clearly, if I've approached the poll like this others may as well. Right now I guess I'd describe myself as hunter (like the vast majority of players will identify as within these confines) - which is what I put in the poll. But I hate to pigeon hole myself in a single category because I (like I imagine is true with many Entropians) do a wide range of things.

Sorry, I don't mean to give you a hard time with this... I can appreciate what you're trying to learn with a poll like this and the time it took to put together but I feel the rules in it are a little too likely to skew results to what most people would expect the poll results to be without revealing valuable insights as all other data isn't being considered. Looking at the results so far none of the data is surprising. I'm really not sure what you're hoping to reveal with this poll beyond the well known fact that most people are hunters and are interested in making real money while having fun playing a game. And not surprising that a good chunk are older players as they tend to be the ones active on the forum the most resulting in more comments about the falling in love with an early version.

Maybe rather than a simple poll here it would be better to have a questionnaire is built off-site which can have branching question paths based on selection. If you truly want to understand what people are doing, why they are here and stay here and to paint a more accurate picture I think a more comprehensive data collection system is needed.

 

[Atrax]

I didn't vote, it's a bit much.

I'm a collector I guess, not much of one though since I don't throw a lot of money in here. In the beginning I was looking for something social, and fun.

I'd been playing an MMO (flyff) with my kids for a while and got an awesome new PC, I decided to look for something more adult to do. Probably lucky for me then it was late '09 or early '10 and there was a lot of press about the change from PE to EU and the CryEngine conversion. Perfect for me to check out my new PC.

There's a much longer story here about my early days, I'm not going to dig it up and link it. I posted it about the time I was "letting go" of the fact that the environment I had come for was not coming back. I never wanted to cash out though, or get money from the game at all. But I liked to collect stuff, and do some things. Just mess around. I have never in my life been an "avid gamer" and certainly not up to the last few years ever a "grinder" at anything.

So I have a bunch of stuff, nothing special except maybe a building on Ark - and that's not really turned out to be that useful. Still I ahve some UL vehicles, my old armors, a lot of blueprints, just junk mostly. Not enough for me to try and sell out or withdraw, though I'm sure some would. I could pull out a couple grand.

Anyways I came back a few weeks ago on the anniversary of 4 years playing another game I bought to distract me from EU. I put 9k hours into that in 4 years so, much more grinding than I had ever done. Since I've been back here I've hunted, crafted, and mined - put a little money in UA, cycle it, then buy stuff at auction. Armor I don't use, plates, more blueprints I can't (for skill, money or both) really use, etc...

The irritation that made me walk away has softened and now there's another engine/conversion coming. Another reason to just hold on to my junk, and keep messing with the game. Playing at that kind of pace, there isn't really a gambler's rush to chase or anything since EP/Loot 2.0. MA have invited too many people to dedicate themselves to getting money out of the game over the years, and they keep it way too f'ckin hard to advance. And when I say hard, I just mean money of course.

I didn't understand the reasons that a lot of my in-game friends left at the time but they were just a little more forward looking than me. When CLD went on sale, probably half of the guild I had been in bugged out never to return. So I keep my shops and cars and stuff, enjoy running around here and there exploring the mechanics and dynamics of the game. And always just buying crap.

I guess at this time I'm here out of nostalgia for early EU/post PE times, and now curiosity for UE5.

To add: Regarding "exploring the mechanics and dynamics of the game" I've had some interesting conversations over the years, and there's always a vein of "until you've done something 100k times, fuck off" around here.

I was a software QA and process analyst for almost 14 years. Black box testing and data driven test automation were my specialties for much of that time, it wasn't until a little later I was doing code analysis and white box testing for back end banking software. Rate shock tools, data management, product profitability analysis. Stuff like that. Obviously MA keeps a tight lid on the box but - it's not as incredibly complex as some people want it to be

 

[Legends]

All I'm saying is you've got a bunch of overlap in the poll and I don't think you can really pinpoint the answer to your questions of "why are you here" with a cut and dried answer. And forcing people to only pick their top reason isn't going to give any sort of accurate actionable data.

I wish you would take the time and explain why you think that, it hard to formulate a response without understanding where you are coming from when you make that claim (I don't know whether I need to write-up a whole dissertation on Marketing Surveys or just explain briefly one simple idea which may not be immediately obvious here in this poll/thread)

The results from the poll are already shaping up to be what anyone that's been playing this game for a few years would come to expect based on the options available.

I think you're only looking at one side of it. Looking at results so far, I have big questions now, for one thing, why aren't more people here to make money??? That's a real puzzler to me... I don't even know where to begin to try to explain or even understand that one... And omg, look at how many people are here simply because they fell in love with a concept more than a decade ago! What!? Holy shit, 40%! I was not expecting that AT ALL, this is very significant and not something that MA can ignore and it will need it's own follow-up survey for sure.

Sorry, perhaps I'm just missing what the intended goal is for this data.

If a business wishes to expand and be successful, it's important that they figure out what actions they are doing or product features are working and which ones are not. If a business can understand what is working, then they can reinforce those things, and if they do that it will inevitably result in more growth, as long as they have the correct successful actions. And if they can figure out what's not really working, then they can drop those actions to focus on more important, more successful actions.

If for example, I'm producing and selling vacuum cleaners and one particular model is selling more then another, I should find out why it's selling more, so I know and understand what it is that buyers like about it, so I can improve my sales on the other models, or make an even better model that's going to sell even more.

And if my Marketing Survey is well designed, I could at the same time figure out what features of my vacuum cleaners are NOT popular and stop wasting my time working on and advertising product features that do absolutely nothing for my sales. And this second part is, what I think some people are not understanding here in this case.

--
Over the entire period that Entropia has been in existence, since January 30, 2003 to today, there have been some huge changes; there was the asteroid (Club Neverdie) and with it came the taxi business and a bit later, other vehicles; Banks and Malls; CE2 and to some extent, a re-invention of Caly; Planet Partners and Space; Loot 2.0; it's been a wild ride tbh...

Have every single one of these been successful? Actually, no. I can tell you, by some estimates, activity in Entropia, dropped probably by two-thirds when Loot 2.0 came out. For a couple of years, UL weapons saw their values slashed by at least half if not more; there was a bit of a bank run in EU at that time and lots of players (more then at any other time most likely) left EU to never return again. Or what about those changes MA did to mining about 3 years ago? Were those successful? Are there more miners today then there was then?

Anyway, MA has all those statistics so there is no need to make a poll to find out about that, they already know. What they don't really know for sure and actually make a lot of assumptions about, is the reason why the people that are here right now are continuing to play; What is the reason? Why Entropia and not some other game? I'm not saying that I'm going to get to the bottom of this with just this one forum poll, it would probably take 3-5 well crafted Marketing Surveys to really find out the truth of it, but I have to try and I have to start somewhere.

MA just announced in their UE5 Dev blog recently that they are going to put a lot of focus on Exploration; actually, I'll do better than that, here's their game marketing, right out of that dev blog:

This is how MindArk wants to position the game, how they plan to "sell" it to the masses. Is it based on Marketing Surveys? No. It looks like it's based mostly on some assumptions that MA is making about what features Entropia has to offer that will "sell".

Let's take the first word: "Explore". Do people log in to go Explore? Maybe they did, a long time ago when they first joined. But are people logging in today, after a decade of play to go explore? I'll do another Poll eventually to find out why people started playing in the first place, but for now, just thinking about why people even play Entropia in the first place (long term), I can tell you it's not to go Explore, and this poll is already showing that.

Next we have "Exploit the resources". Is that why people who play Entropia log in for? To go exploit the resources? Let's see, how many miners do we have? I think I'm missing something here...

"Vibrant alien worlds"? Ok, maybe, this one needs more analysis because a lot of people today are logging in because of their first encounter with Project Entropia and that's significant.

"Real-cash Economy", yes, that's like 50% of the people playing today, they are logging in for the real-cash economy, well done.

"Two decades" (longevity, continuity, stability), it hasn't come up in this poll so far but it is a selling point, it just needs to be surveyed seperately. However that's more likely to be tied to depositing/investing then to join up and try the game.

"Build trade networks", "Contract other users" and "find your niche", these words are not surveyed and I just have to assume that what MA wishes to convey is that there are lots of business/trading opportunities in this game and people could make money. The word "Entrepreneurs" at the end of it backs up this point. Here we see MA making the assumption that what people like about Entropia and why people choose to play Entropia instead of another game is because they can build a business and be an entrepreneur in this game. How well has this polled here so far in this survey? With only 15% of people saying they are here to make money, and 78% being hunters, I don't know... Needs more surveying but doesn't look good.

"Make a name for yourself", well... Only 5% of those voting in the Poll so far are saying this is one of the main reasons they are logging in and playing Entropia.

"Thriving online community", how many people log in for Social aspects?

--
If this is how you are going to market Entropia today, you will not keep anyone that joins. You might be able to drive new people in the door to try it out, but you won't keep many of them, there will be a big retention problem, because there is a huge disconnect between what people are actually sticking around for and what you are selling them. Yes they are promoting the Real-Cash Economy, but it's not surveyed, it's not being positioned or marketed properly

--
I was also going to explain why I have limited choices to a max of 2 but this post has gotten way too long already, perhaps next time.

 

[JohnCapital]

Since I can't answer properly, here's my votes. (Technically, I could've also hit the "social" option, but I've become a lot less social ingame these days, so while it used to be true, it's not atm.)

I think Jambon said it best:

Honestly, I've been all the above during my 16 year life in game. Originally I focused on mining, then trading and then hunting. But how I approach the game changes all the time.

I think you have a few pre-conceived notions about a lot of players. Yes, the idea of players specializing in something and having "professions" is a nice way to box folks in, but that model breaks way more often than you think. I mean FFS, even Messi isn't just a hunter. He crafts quite a bit. Yes, obviously hunting is his main thing, but still...

And how do you classify Buzz Erik Lightyear? Hunter? Crafter? Land owner? He hits all these checkboxes pretty hard.

I've even seen Auktuma globaling in Mayhem, (yes, he classifies as "crafter", but you get my point)

You are not really all 3...

And if you really do all 3 (I know some people do)...

I mean, even here, you contradict yourself.

BTW, according to one of your rules (pick the one you are highest skilled in) I would click the hunter box. I'm way more skilled in hunting than mining by far.
But according to another rule (If you spend most of your logged in time mining ....) then I'd click the mining box, since this is what I've been focusing on lately.

Oh, and I know some players who change their play based on the season. Literally. They swunt to collect basic material needed in the off seaosn, then go into mad crafting and reselling mode when they know folks need the gear most.

I'm not trying to give you grief or f*ck w/ your poll, I'm just saying that maybe the answers you offer say more about your thoughts about players than what boxes we click say about us.

 

[Legends]

Since I can't answer properly, here's my votes. (Technically, I could've also hit the "social" option, but I've become a lot less social ingame these days, so while it used to be true, it's not atm.)

I think Jambon said it best:


I think you have a few pre-conceived notions about a lot of players. Yes, the idea of players specializing in something and having "professions" is a nice way to box folks in, but that model breaks way more often than you think. I mean FFS, even Messi isn't just a hunter. He crafts quite a bit. Yes, obviously hunting is his main thing, but still...

And how do you classify Buzz Erik Lightyear? Hunter? Crafter? Land owner? He hits all these checkboxes pretty hard.

I've even seen Auktuma globaling in Mayhem, (yes, he classifies as "crafter", but you get my point)


I mean, even here, you contradict yourself.

BTW, according to one of your rules (pick the one you are highest skilled in) I would click the hunter box. I'm way more skilled in hunting than mining by far.
But according to another rule (If you spend most of your logged in time mining ....) then I'd click the mining box, since this is what I've been focusing on lately.

Oh, and I know some players who change their play based on the season. Literally. They swunt to collect basic material needed in the off seaosn, then go into mad crafting and reselling mode when they know folks need the gear most.

I'm not trying to give you grief or f*ck w/ your poll, I'm just saying that maybe the answers you offer say more about your thoughts about players than what boxes we click say about us.

John I appreciate your feedback but you are giving the 2nd question way too much importance...

The important question is the first one.

The 2nd question is there just to help interpret the results on the first question, since it's a small sample size.

And, BUZZ is an investor and has been ever since he owned CP. He's an investor that seeks out all sorts of opportunities, no matter where that takes him, be it hunting, mining, crafting, owning shops, speculating, whatever, doesn't matter, he'll do it all.

 

[DrGirlfriend]

I think you should try using Google forms to make a proper survey, to avoid any and all of these issues and to be able to export and more easily sort the data

 

[jambon]

I wish you would take the time and explain why you think that, it hard to formulate a response without understanding where you are coming from when you make that claim (I don't know whether I need to write-up a whole dissertation on Marketing Surveys or just explain briefly one simple idea which may not be immediately obvious here in this poll/thread)

Sorry, I'll try to break it down a little more when I say there's a lot of overlap in the poll options. For example I see these 3 things as essentially just being different ways to say "make money":

For the real cash economy - that's a very broad statement. What does it mean? Is it referring specifically to the ability to make money or spend money or that money is just involved? When I look at that statement I see it applying to all and being synonymous with "to make money".

For the markup! (to make money) - Well which is it? Markup or making money? Does this mean specifically for trading for markup or looting for markup? Does "markup" and "making money" not have any connection to the definition of an economy (or real cash economy)?

I want ATH (or other notoriety, i.e. high skill level, soc leader, etc.) - When I think ATH, I think big cash payout more than notoriety. Which lends itself once again to the idea of making money. I feel like wanting an ATH isn't the same as wanting notoriety. I think this option could have just been called "Notoriety" without mentioning ATH of HoF board specifically.

Other options have some overlap and unclarity too:

To have fun! (role play, explore alien worlds, have swirlies, etc.) / Social aspects (community, society, friends, etc.) - I mean swirlies also lend themselves to the idea of profitability. I mean we all like the animation but I think it's more about the fact that it represents getting loot / making money. Having fun is is a broad spectrum too which can include items mentioned elsewhere in the poll. If I'm here to have fun but my fun is the social aspects which do I pick?

I fell in love with an early version of Entropia or PE - This can be true in addition to any of the other options and could in part be teamed with any of the other things. This poll option generally equates to "are you an old player" as any old players that are still around must have fallen in love with something (or are making bank). The selection itself can be very vague as someone's only selection.
"I fell in love with an early version of Entropia because...."

• ...There was a lot to explore and learn
• ...There release of content like new mobs was more exciting
• ...The community was more helpful
• ...I found it easier to make money in loot 1.0
• ...Markups were better on resources
• ...Good gear was cheap - they used to TT shadow parts!
• ...There was more community generated content (radio shows, events, fashion shows...etc)
• ...Opportunities for investment were more limited and linear

Any of those things (and more) could apply. So which do you select the one that corresponds to what you fell in love with in the old version or just the catch all that you fell in love with an old version?

I like the idea of the data something like this could provide. But the data can become skewed without clarity and restriction or structure to the collection.

I think you're only looking at one side of it. Looking at results so far, I have big questions now, for one thing, why aren't more people here to make money??? That's a real puzzler to me... I don't even know where to begin to try to explain or even understand that one... And omg, look at how many people are here simply because they fell in love with a concept more than a decade ago! What!? Holy shit, 40%! I was not expecting that AT ALL, this is very significant and not something that MA can ignore and it will need it's own follow-up survey for sure.

Yes these are interesting observations. Again, tough to make any conclusions though because this poll doesn't tell the whole story. More people may have come to make money initially but have stayed because they found other reasons (which they selected in the poll) after surrendering to the idea that withdrawing, breaking even or profiting is probably not going to happen for them. I know a good number of people that are sitting 10's of thousands of $ in the hole but they continue to play despite the reality that it would take several top ATH's just to get back to even. A lot of these people came with the idea of making money initially.

It's a whole discussion in and of itself (and nothing that can be proven via a poll) but there's something to be said for finding justification for money lost. Once you get to a certain point in the hole it becomes very difficult for some people to accept the thought that such a huge amount is gone forever with nothing in return. So they assign other value to the game and their avatar. "It's a hobby", "it's a social thing that's cheaper than the bar", "well the money's not really gone cause my skill are worth XXX", "it's cheaper than the casino", "I've gotten a lot of hours of gameplay"... all these are means of self soothing the loss and enable people to feel ok with continuing to deposit money and losing (to be blunt).

Why aren't more people here to make money? I think it's because the majority have had their ass chapped so bad from losses they don't see it as being a possibly so they look to other goals. I think a large amount of the player base's primary goals isn't playing to win money but instead to play to get just enough peds so they can continue to play to get just enough peds so they can continue to play to get just enough peds to...etc..etc.

 

[Atrax]

why aren't more people here to make money???

The people that are actually here "to make money" aren't doing a lot of foruming, or going to admit it I think. These people are largely grinding the auction along with the rest of their "families". And TBF I 'm not sure how lucrative that is at this time. Holding up prices in a slow market is hard.

Obviously this isn't 100% not trying to pigeonhole everyone. Some careful players get money out and OFC we have a few high profile ubers who can occasionally pull a chunk. But people with "make money" as an actual primary goal don't last long unless they see effectively gambling as "trying to make money".

People who are attracted by all the "get paid to play" and "Get rich in EU" ads and articles are (in large part) gone in a flash when they see how it works.

I can tell you, by some estimates, activity in Entropia, dropped probably by two-thirds when Loot 2.0 came out.

I don't know about numbers but I can also tell you that some of the actual millionaires and big spenders people talk about feeding the economy walked with the implementation of deeds. This ratio can be a lot smaller but it probably hurt a lot more. Since that time all moves appear to be towards "stability".

Which interferes with "make money".

 

[INTERNUT]

Why am I here, why did I join? Someone in another mmo/mmorpg told me about EU in the first quarter of 2021 and so a few months later I signed-up and the rest is history as they say. I like the overall graphics of EU and the fact that it's more than just a game. You're not tied to some storyline and you're not role-playing.

 

[Legends]

Sorry, I'll try to break it down a little more when I say there's a lot of overlap in the poll options. For example I see these 3 things as essentially just being different ways to say "make money":

For the real cash economy - that's a very broad statement. What does it mean? Is it referring specifically to the ability to make money or spend money or that money is just involved? When I look at that statement I see it applying to all and being synonymous with "to make money".

Yes it's very broad and in itself doesn't tell us squat so who cares? We don't know what the people that chose that one had in mind, so why even bother to poll it at all? I understand.

Well, I'm looking for buttons I can investigate further, is the short answer. And so this is a preliminary survey, to identify what exactly we need to follow up on with more surveys. Now that we know that this is a big button for people, we need to come up with another Survey/Poll that will help us understand what exactly is a Real-Cash Economy for people, and how it can be made better, and how it can be marketed accurately.

Conversely, the above poll is showing me that Social Aspects for example, is not a significant reason for people to continue playing Entropia, we can speculate now and say that's probably because if anyone has made any solid friendships through Entropia, they don't really need to stay or continue playing EU to maintain them, they can find other means (like Discord for example). So since it sits at only 8%, it is not something I would follow up on anytime soon.

For the markup! (to make money) - Well which is it? Markup or making money? Does this mean specifically for trading for markup or looting for markup? Does "markup" and "making money" not have any connection to the definition of an economy (or real cash economy)?

Yeah this one I did some back and forth on when I was designing the survey. I was fishing for a button there and it seems it's a miss, but still interesting. We have "Real-cash economy" sitting at 50%, but "to make money" sitting at low 20s. So obviously, "Real-Cash Economy" does not equate to "making money" for people who voted in this poll. It's not the home-run I was hoping for but it's a hint.

But basically, just to explain that one a little bit more, it's pretty clear especially since Loot 2.0 was released (though it has always been that way), that the only way that anyone makes money in EU is with markup. No markup = no profits, for anyone. In other words, you can't make money from MindArk, the house takes a cut on everything and you are always left with less then what you had to start with. You can only make money when you add markup to loot, to resources, to crafted items, etc. If markup was to suddenly disappear from the game, everyone's profits would be all gone, even Deed holders and Land Area owners.

Hunters look for mobs that have loot with markup, expecially the high-level hunters. If a mob's loot has no markup, they usually abandon it pretty quick. Miners look for resources that have markup value; they wouldn't waste their day looking for Growth Molecules, Crude Oil, or any other such low markup resources, it would be a total waste of time and a guaranteed financial loss. Crafters will make items that they can profit on upon selling, they know how to do the math on that and they know that if there was no markup, it would not be possible to make any money. Shop owners are reminded of the fact every single time they enter a price on an item (above tt), without markup, there's no profit... I could go on and on. And yes, Land Area owners should know too, if there's no loot or resource on their land that has markup, then it's going to be hard to spur any activity on it from which they can make some profit. Therefore Lands with mobs who's loot has good markup and Lands where resources can be found in the ground that have decent markup are more valuable then Lands without. Deed/Share holders should also know that if all of a sudden, there's no longer any reason to hunt/mine on NI/AG, their payouts and their share's value will go down... etc.

I know that Forgo, Messi91, Eve, Buzz, Auk, Miks, etc... All make money in EU. There are probably a lot of other ubers that make money too, probably Lunchbox does, probably JBK too though he says he's a depositor, but I have a hunch that if he were to add up the total value of all the items in his possession, and compared that number with the amount he's deposited into EU over the years, he's probably in the green (profit territory). Every Migration, we see Messi commenting in the announcement thread "I smell markup", so it's not like this is a totally foreign concept to everybody. I think most people that have been around for years understand this concept: markup is where the money is for players.

So to make a long story short, I was just curious and wanted to see if there might be a rallying cry (button) behind "For the Markup!". It's a big no, that one is not polling well at all. So I'm disappointed and now in hindsight I feel I kind of wasted one of my poll choices on something that didn't pan out. But it had to be done, and now it's done and we know the results.

There is a certain amount of trial and error that usually goes into marketing surveys. And now you've seen that in action.

I want ATH (or other notoriety, i.e. high skill level, soc leader, etc.) - When I think ATH, I think big cash payout more than notoriety. Which lends itself once again to the idea of making money. I feel like wanting an ATH isn't the same as wanting notoriety. I think this option could have just been called "Notoriety" without mentioning ATH of HoF board specifically.

Leaderboards do keep people in a game. Probably the most sought after bragging rights in EVE Online is the Kill Mail. In EU we have HoFs and ATH. I know someone in EU who only cares about the ATH, so I had to check it to see how it polled. If it had polled well, we could have followed up on it to find out more about the reasons behind that being an important reason to continue playing EU.

Other options have some overlap and unclarity too:

To have fun! (role play, explore alien worlds, have swirlies, etc.) / Social aspects (community, society, friends, etc.) - I mean swirlies also lend themselves to the idea of profitability. I mean we all like the animation but I think it's more about the fact that it represents getting loot / making money. Having fun is is a broad spectrum too which can include items mentioned elsewhere in the poll. If I'm here to have fun but my fun is the social aspects which do I pick?

Initally, I had "Addicted to Swirlies" as one of the poll choices, but that's a dead-end cause MA will never again reinforce or associate EU to gambling, that could end up getting EU banned in some countries and would be disastrous. So since it's a dead-end, I decided to remove it. If "Addicted to Swirlies" had polled high, what do we do? Make it even more so? Make EU feel even more like gambling since this is what's keeping people playing? I don't think so, not gonna happen. So it's a dead-end. If I'm to guess I would say what's more likely to heppen is MA will make the game more about fun, and make it even more clear that it's skill-based, to distance themselves further from gambling.

I fell in love with an early version of Entropia or PE - This can be true in addition to any of the other options and could in part be teamed with any of the other things. This poll option generally equates to "are you an old player" as any old players that are still around must have fallen in love with something (or are making bank). The selection itself can be very vague as someone's only selection.
"I fell in love with an early version of Entropia because...."

• ...There was a lot to explore and learn
• ...There release of content like new mobs was more exciting
• ...The community was more helpful
• ...I found it easier to make money in loot 1.0
• ...Markups were better on resources
• ...Good gear was cheap - they used to TT shadow parts!
• ...There was more community generated content (radio shows, events, fashion shows...etc)
• ...Opportunities for investment were more limited and linear

Any of those things (and more) could apply. So which do you select the one that corresponds to what you fell in love with in the old version or just the catch all that you fell in love with an old version?

Right, and so now that we see this is polling really high, it'll have to be looked into further and I think the only way to do it will be with a long answer survey question, not a Poll with options. As I said already, this is just a preliminary survey to find out what should be looked into more by polling/surveying the hell out of it to get to the bottom of it.

Yes these are interesting observations. Again, tough to make any conclusions though because this poll doesn't tell the whole story. More people may have come to make money initially but have stayed because they found other reasons (which they selected in the poll) after surrendering to the idea that withdrawing, breaking even or profiting is probably not going to happen for them. I know a good number of people that are sitting 10's of thousands of $ in the hole but they continue to play despite the reality that it would take several top ATH's just to get back to even. A lot of these people came with the idea of making money initially.

Any Poll or Survey to find out what made people sign-up and try Entropia in the first place would more than likely just point to MindArk's previous positioning and marketing. I think most of it over the years has revolved around "making money while playing video games". So a Poll to find out that the majority have come here thinking they could make money while playing video games isn't really going to lead anywhere, it's just feeding us back the earlier slogans and catch-phrases of MindArk's past marketing efforts. What do we do with that? We just acknowledge it and realize, no wonder there's a retention problem, they are promising one thing and delivering another. Anyone joining up because of the idea that they can make money playing video games will quickly leave after losing a hundred, two hundred, and say it was all false advertising, a scam. That's not the way to promote/market Entropia, sorry.

It's a whole discussion in and of itself (and nothing that can be proven via a poll) but there's something to be said for finding justification for money lost. Once you get to a certain point in the hole it becomes very difficult for some people to accept the thought that such a huge amount is gone forever with nothing in return. So they assign other value to the game and their avatar. "It's a hobby", "it's a social thing that's cheaper than the bar", "well the money's not really gone cause my skill are worth XXX", "it's cheaper than the casino", "I've gotten a lot of hours of gameplay"... all these are means of self soothing the loss and enable people to feel ok with continuing to deposit money and losing (to be blunt).

I can't touch that with a ten foot pole because it's completely opposite to what I'm trying to do here, which is to help MA better position and market Entropia to the masses, to help resolve the issue of a majority of people joining for the wrong reasons and quitting after a short while, leading to severe player retention issues. In other words: The player retention issue starts with faulty marketing and positioning. I suspect MA has been looking at the game itself and blaming it for the poor retention numbers, when in fact, the biggest issue of all is the marketing and positioning. The majority of the people reached with their marketing are coming here expecting one thing, when they find it is something else entirely, they leave. Simple as that.

So now, it seems, in some ways, MindArk wants to re-invent Entropia to match their marketing rather than fixing the marketing to match what Entropia really is. That would not be good for the current playerbase, I don't think.

Why aren't more people here to make money? I think it's because the majority have had their ass chapped so bad from losses they don't see it as being a possibly so they look to other goals. I think a large amount of the player base's primary goals isn't playing to win money but instead to play to get just enough peds so they can continue to play to get just enough peds so they can continue to play to get just enough peds to...etc..etc.

This is why Polls and Surveys are done, so we can stop speculating and know what the reality actually is.

 

[jambon]

I can't touch that with a ten foot pole because it's completely opposite to what I'm trying to do here, which is to help MA better position and market Entropia to the masses, to help resolve the issue of a majority of people joining for the wrong reasons and quitting after a short while, leading to severe player retention issues. In other words: The player retention issue starts with faulty marketing and positioning. I suspect MA has been looking at the game itself and blaming it for the poor retention numbers, when in fact, the biggest issue of all is the marketing and positioning. The majority of the people reached with their marketing are coming here expecting one thing, when they find it is something else entirely, they leave. Simple as that.

I hope MA has been looking at the game itself cause that's where the issue is IMO. I mean, the marketing they do is crap too but beyond the RCE what can EU boast in marketing that isn't done 10x better by the available alternatives? A pretty hard sell and as great as the RCE is, it's a big turn off when the reality of cost to play and to reach mid to late game is realized.

EU was pretty ground breaking with its RCE and free to play model at the time. But free to play has been perfected elsewhere over the last 20 years and EU really hasn't kept up.

Anyways, this is a whole discussion and debatable issue... I wish you luck with this poll and hope all this info helps them. I'm out. :-D

 

[Atrax]

So they assign other value to the game and their avatar. "It's a hobby", "it's a social thing that's cheaper than the bar", "well the money's not really gone cause my skill are worth XXX", "it's cheaper than the casino", "I've gotten a lot of hours of gameplay"... all these are means of self soothing the loss and enable people to feel ok with continuing to deposit money and losing (to be blunt).

For some reason this popped out more on the re-quote than the initial read. This reads like sour grapes, and I'm sure there's plenty of it. It does probably develop for those (perhaps the majority) drawn here thinking primarily of taking RL profit.

There are in fact people who don't mind paying for their entertainment - for one reason or another. I don't mind paying to see a film. Especially if I enjoy the film, I want those actors to get paid. And of course the distributors and etc... all because at the end of the day - I want more films. Sure somebody's going to come along and point out it can be pirated. And more often than not that person's joy is going to be increased at the notion that they've been able to take something they want without putting anything back into the loop. But that's perhaps the subject of a different conversation.

Same here. MAs advertising choices have kept the game's focus always on money. But if there weren't those who were willing to let a little go to keep things moving - EU would have failed a long time ago.

If every person in EU was here strictly for what they could tangibly take out of it - it would have been picked apart long ago.

Conversely, the above poll is showing me that Social Aspects for example, is not a significant reason for people to continue playing Entropia,

I think that maybe this is deceptive. If you're looking forward for direction, ignoring this is a huge mistake. As a matter of opinion of course but results here are biased by what's left of the people who have played over the years. This was once a very social environment, it's just that a lot of those kind of people have left as, one by one, MA has stripped away so many of the parts of the game that made the game fun to more directly support and enforce an atmosphere of competitive turnover.

This made it pretty darn easy for me to walk away as the game failed to evolve in any direction I enjoyed at the time. It's clear here that many others felt the same. Too little too late MA has cleaned up some things in the game with the cost of cosmetics and other things - by the time they removed the few things we could do to the world - left it so you couldn't even risk losing a campfire at a beach party, place a chair to sit, build clubs and castles in the sky - the people who were into these things left.

There are a lot more subtleties here but at this time polling on this kind of topic is not indicating what people want, I think, as much as it's just revealing a certain survivorship bias in the remaining community. To look for growth this is a critical area.

There was a time when things got really bad and I certainly don't want to re-hash any of that but one thing that has really stood out to me since my return is that the forums are much tamer, more quiet and business like than in any of my previous tangles with the game.

EDIT: I Still want to ramble

Who remembers this gem:

When's the last time MA tried to get involved in anything like that? I love this shirt, it was in fact gifted to me it's one of my greatest EU treasures.

When's the last time you put a few hundred PED MV onto a 20 PED car? We don't have car shows any more because the "e-sports enthusiasts" trying to cycle PED complained about a little bit of lag trying to get out of the popular social spaces.

I have an outfit I paid 1000 PED for, and it doesn't even give me a single buff or attribute increase. It just looks really cool, and I wanted that for when I was hanging out dancing at the beach. No problem I don't call that a "loss" and complain that I can't HoF it back any more.

I also have a ship that I put a ton of hours, and a ton of PED into. Roughly estimated (it's been a while) 3200 PED into MU and cycling losses for something that MA have left broken for most of the last decade because so many things were left broken or removed that the people who really cared about that stuff - they just got up and left.

IMO ignoring and minimizing these aspects of the game is a large part of why it's become nothing but a quiet grindfest of mayhem after mayhem after seasonal event. It IS all about the money now - but it wasn't always.

 

[Legends]

The people that are actually here "to make money" aren't doing a lot of foruming, or going to admit it I think. These people are largely grinding the auction along with the rest of their "families". And TBF I 'm not sure how lucrative that is at this time. Holding up prices in a slow market is hard.

Obviously this isn't 100% not trying to pigeonhole everyone. Some careful players get money out and OFC we have a few high profile ubers who can occasionally pull a chunk. But people with "make money" as an actual primary goal don't last long unless they see effectively gambling as "trying to make money".

I don't think this is correct at all Atrax. I think that most of the people using this forum are hardcore, veteran EU players with big stakes in EU. Drakil, Buzz, myself, MsPudding, Forgo, and countless more, have significant investments in the game. Eve, Messi, Raven, Lunchbox, JBK, Alainax, etc. have items worth lots of money, they aren't playing around most of them, Entropia is a serious entreprise to them and they are pursuing it keenly.

So most of the people here in this forum have a business sense and have big sums staked here. Which makes it even more puzzling to me that "to make money" is polling so poorly.

People who are attracted by all the "get paid to play" and "Get rich in EU" ads and articles are (in large part) gone in a flash when they see how it works.

Yep, so it's very poorly designed marketing that is very ineffective in the long run. It might increase sign-ups momentarily but over time, it's just shit.