Why I enjoy EU [and account-related suggestion]

[asynaseio]

I was an avid EQ player in my youth, along with other dnd-rpgs
I found Entropia later as a young adult with Star Wars and Anarchy Online behind my belt.

Most rpg stories did not interest me, and still don't, but I enjoy the meta-game of skilling, leveling up, and character stats. I enjoy some jrpgs in this way, making powerful characters and generally if the storyline does not interest me, I skip through it mostly.

As for EU, this is a great mix of slow gameplay ( i can relate this to many old rpgs such as eq (original and kunark to luclin) as well as Asherons call and anarchy online. Instead of flying through slamming controller buttons and watching an anime character dice through hoards of enemies (not to say these are interesting sometimes)..

I can just zone out with only a small amount of ped and simply work on a character. I'm not in it to make big ped, I can spend maybe $10 from time to time and make a strategy to skill up at least combat. I can plan ahead within mining and crafting but I was not one of those players before. This aspect doesn't interest me as much.

So the game really depends on how the user manages their investment (playthrough worth related to time) and what they do in the game. I simply can log in for an hour or more and am okay with hitting one key 'f' and just grazing through enemies. So +1 for this aspect as I can also completely ignore storyline. +2 for the new ai system, I can learn about the world without needing to quest by speaking to the npcs around camp Icarus.

My only gripe and suggestion is after some though would be to allow multiple accounts which can be played as long as their related to a registered phone number. Like google for example, a simple page which would list accounts based on the users phone number would show related accounts for returning players. Many people make new emails for a variety of reasons, ISP changes, life changes, (No isp, so use free mail like gmail) the need to make new gmails or different account emails (yahoo outlook etc) for a myriad of reasons.

Maybe a lock on abuse would be no trading between characters can take place (or even this can be allowed for old accounts with ped to be transffered to other accounts) maybe an phone-number account related bank or mail system.. but at least the ability to check old accounts using a phone number -> phone numbers allowing with the two form authentications related make everything secure enough. Taking aspects of abuse would be crucial to allow this, such as not allowing them to be logged in at once; this would (from the only thing i can think up at the moment) would be for fake trade messages to swindle users such as a false wtb and a false wts to trick a buyer/seller while using two of the same phone number accounts. That's all I can think of. I only play one account ( I let go of older account and do not wish to restore it; ) now but this in the future might prevent some gripes.

Note I play many games on and off and only come back to a few more classic and older ones. This being one now, which is a new addition to a fallback game. The newer games I find seem to be in a jetstream of 'ok play the game and play the next one, dont look back' as steam ui and epic games suggests. Maybe someone out there can relate. But these are only personal viewpoints

 

[binfordw]

Why do you see a need for multiple accounts?

 

[TheOneOmega]

Honestly, I think the trend of having a "metaaccount" where all of your accounts get usermapped, you have to log out of your email account twice to "remove it from your device," etc., largely defeats the value of allowing multiple accounts. The value of multiple accounts is to preserve anonymity. It is to recognize and substantiate a core aspect of users' decentralized, autonomous ownership of their own digital identities.

Entropia certainly could have gone the multiple account route, but after as many years as we've used the current model, my hunch is that it would be too disruptive of a change, at least right now. A lot of folks have been playing for 20+ years optimizing a single account. Jumping to a model which incentivizes managing many accounts seems like it could potentially obsolete a large volume of players' current long-term strategies and goals. And developers would have to plan around accounts trading with each other; they couldn't prevent it with a usermap. A player could just trade with friends as intermediaries to get an item from one account to another, and as network science teaches us that most pairs of individuals are connected by very few degrees of separations, trying to discern organic from planned item movement by tracing transaction chains would be all but hopeless.

Entropia used to be "pretty good" at respecting the sandbox-friendly principle of keeping content permanently available to all accounts, regardless of past choices and/or actions. The open-ended skilling system is one example. Removing the Sweat cap was another good step in the direction. But really it was the norm in Entropia's design, not the exception. A couple example areas for minor improvement included Ethereal Soul Language (they could easily introduce a way to "relock" the ability to see messages of dead Entropians after you've unlocked it, so that players could toggle between unlocked and locked), skilling as sliders rather than numbers (say you want run as though you had 40 Agility even though you have 50, or use a maxed weapon with less than max stats, just adjust a slider for each skill in the skill window to your liking; skilling increases the maximum value of the slider), etc. However in the current era, all forms of mission system (except, i.e., dailies), item untradeability, and a culture of planet partners yanking Entropians around the universe from one limited time event to the next presented as the "main content" of Entropia have all unfortunately carpet-bombed this principle into the ground.

I love the concept of unlimited accounts on a philosophical level, and I find arguments about reputation on a single account deterring scamming pretty weak (do you trust accounts in Entropia you don't know just because it's their only account? I don't), but after such a long time operating in the current model, I think recalibrating user experience around a principle of keeping as much of Entropia's content permanently available as possible so that there is no motivation for multiple accounts is the better route. Maybe if we move in this direction and away from the "one time per account only" content, it will also make it easier to theorize about moving to a multiple account model in the future without major strategic disruption.