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Yi Shu Jia

G

Gung-Ho

Old
Joined
Jul 21, 2025
Posts
55
Avatar Name
Dao Yishujia Snougle
I do not know what brought me back, it is something deeper than I need to remember.
Maybe it is a fragment of what I consider home, something familiar, something to dream.
When I wander the lands, whether mining or hunting I take time for myself to think.
While the familiar scenes of Calypso roll by I am reminded of things forgotten. Small thoughts,
dreams, long lost ambitions, naivety of youth, parts I have lost since moving abroad.

I have made my New Year's resolution, albeit the year of the fire dragon be still a moon away.
This year, I promised to write daily, as a practice. Some of I will write here, as a narrative of my
journey through Entropia. A journey without a goal, yet progress is always made. I don't dream of
goals since the journey itself is the point.
I remember the words of Master G. "focus on the process, not the outcome". That was years ago, during
Covid, yet those words spoke to me. I will never be a good painter or drawer like him, yet his words also
apply to the art of writing. Heck, they actually apply to the art of living.

Concerning painting and drawing, I picked up the practice again. Just because I feel called to. It brings joy.
Another New Year's resolution. I also started taking piano lessons.

Yi stands for skill, art or craft.
Shu stands for technique, method, practice
Jia means home, although it the phrase it is often seen a teacher or master, I believe "one whose home is" matches better.

Together they form the phrase artist.
And I understand I am, for better or worse, and artist. Condemned to struggle with the concepts of art and meaning.
 
Utter Garbage

This game is utter garbage. But that is okay, because to me it is sentimental garbage.
I don't play this game when I want to "play a game", nor do I hope anything from this game at all.
I play this game because some times I miss the vast lands, I miss the ideas I used to have.
It is an whole world, a part of me.

I noticed Setesh, which is new and has a pleasing aesthetic once you leave the lagfest that is Cabraken.
The tutorial is nice and left me with so much stuff it will take some time before I even will need to buy a
starters pack.

But Calypso is changing, Port Atlantis is drifting off into the ocean. I hope it won't change fast. I remember when
we said goodbye to the gamebryo engine. We lost so much fun lore, and the big loot tower in the desert.
I miss those days, I miss the naive young person I was back then.
't Is why I come back from time to time; to feel that sense of myself again. Places, even virtual ones, store thoughts
and ideas. I'm a man of ideas, so Calypso is an archive.

I an going through the beginner missions, slowly. The garbage design shows. In the black screen for the already garbage
AI NPC's to the clunky way things work. I can't read any of the chat text without hurting my eyes, no matter the background.
But that's not important because the game part of the game is secondary. Just something to do while I wander around and
ruminate.

I should get a mentor I guess. I could use the armor.
Hmm, I don't like the other players, botters, degenerate gamblers, and confused people. I belong to the latter group I guess.
I wonder if I can find a mentor who is quiet, who doesn't want me to join a soc. Someone who's been around when there was
a sweat cap and mobs didn't become unreachable, or even respawn in your radar for that matter.
Maybe I could even enjoy a bit of chatting every know and then, about how the game, and how life used to be, about art, life, and the
state of the world - detached like old men looking at a time they don't totally understand anymore.
If you are that person, and you feel called don't hesitate to respond. If you read up until here, you are the kinda person I like,
someone who still can read something longer than a tweet.
 
Unwritten Rules

People live life with rules, unwritten ones. Most of the rules they follow, they aren't even aware of They have never though about them.
They just assume them without question. I am questioning these rules, which isn't easy since some of them developed preverbal, and are so deeply intertwined with our subconscious we can't even become aware of then with normal means. I would even argue that we don't want to become aware of them. Our ego is protecting itself. Not ego in the mundane meaning of the word, but our sense of self.

As an experiment and exercise I set these rules
  • I will never buy ammo from the TT.
  • I deposit based on real life reasons, totally disconnected from anything in game
  • I will only hunt if I have a mission to do so, or if there is an exciting limited time event to explore
  • I will never log in or play for the sake of completing some goal in game
  • I will not craft

I feel like I would have to explain these rules, for them to make sense to anyone else.
I understand what these rules mean however, so I won't. The most important part is that these rules didn't remain unwritten, but are out there now. written onto paper or set in stone - there is really no difference, once you understand.


There are a set of questions I might want to answer.
Will I ever own a pet? Will I ever own an apartment and will it be in Sakura City? Will I ever hunt Araneatrox?

None of these questions mean what they mean at face value. But who knows, in the run of life I will inevitably find out their answer.
For now, I put my Wasp in the inventory. It needs a good cleaning after making it all the way to Camp Phoenix. And so will I after having culled the local snablesnot population. I really like that hoverbike I got from Setesh, it serves me well for now. And now is the only time which matters.
 
Very good I like the story keep writing and follow your dreams
 
Mentor

I need a mentor which I consider a simple service, akin to a cab ride to the airport.
We always call the black cab service to book a ride to O’Hare. It is a small company,
so either we get the owner or more likely his main guy.
He’s nice, we make some small talk. Talk about how shitty America is,
how we miss our home country. How his kids are doing.

Then a week or so later, he picks us up again at the place he dropped us off. Asking how the vacation went,
how the weather was like. Small talk, no investment.
We each exist in our own world, yet we come together for a purpose. I need a ride; he needs a paycheck.
Most of the time, life just intersects at those moments, and people go their own way again.
Until next year, when we need another ride to the airport.

However sometimes something clicks, you keep talking, you gain a friend.

You get the gist of it. I need a mentor.
I need someone who will click that "add as disciple" button and kill a couple mobs in a team hunt. The rest I can do.
The payout, if you wait a while, is a crappy mentor gift. Worst case the TT will give you 5 ped for it.
You’ll also get a 5-star review. I get my shiny armor, and we both walk away winners.

Now, I could yell in game, and find a mentor that way. I would have one in 5 minutes. But that's not what it is about.
While just like a cab ride, or any other encounter, it is about potentiality. The possibility of meeting someone nice,
make a friend, or having some nice small talk.
I wouldn't book a regular cab service, or stay in a holiday inn. I'm the person who books a black cab, stays in AirBnB and
ask for a mentor in the creative writing section of a forum.

I already know who you are. You are the person who goes to this obscure section of the forum and enjoys to read.
You're reading this, I peaked your interest this far. You're pre-approved.
Don't worry about time zones, I play at odd times and plan to move over the ocean again this year.
Don't worry about languages, I speak a bunch, but prefer English.
Consider this an invite. My avatar name is on the left, under my forum name.
What are you waiting for?
 
Billy’s Spaceship Afterworld

I let you in on a little secret. You think you know Billy’s? The junkyard North of PA, which conveniently has a daily mission board and is one of those forgotten TPs with nothing much around hunting besides mourners to the far west. You wouldn’t be wrong, but you wouldn’t have said it all either. Let me explain.

Billy’s a place of discarded ideas, an old bastion of things not implemented, and alpha versions of things which have. It is a treasure trove of ideas. Sure, it has seen better days and looks so sterile now. Even the skeleton with the “will dance for PED” sign is long gone, but the idea remains.
We all have a place like this, in our mind. A junkyard of ideas. Thoughts that came, were pondered upon and left behind unfinished.
We live in fast times and must be selective. All the data flowing at us. Especially with those flashy devices in our hands, doom scrolling, consuming but not digesting. It hollows us. Malnutrition in a land of abundance.
Hummingbirds, being fed sugar-free syrup. Believing, starving with a full belly of empty calories


I digress however and I came here because I saw the old man.
Staring over the ridge looking at the menacing warrior robots in the distance. He asked if I figured it out yet? I said I thought I was getting close.
Explain then, he said.
The question was how about finance, wasn’t it? Riches, not?

Yes, I want to be financially independent, so that I can “retire” from the life I have now and concentrate my life on writing, painting, music, and other more modern arts. I envision myself having my own atelier, a workplace where I have a desk where I write, check the stock market, and log into Entropia.
I have a painting corner, a standup piano, and a sofa which is comfortable enough to take an afternoon nap.

I live comfortably, but I still sell my art projects, creating a financial buffer – an armor, for when times get rough. The excess I invest, working towards an institute for the arts and the occult. Researching and creating. Helping artists and helping the world.

See, this way I live my dream. I have my home in art, and I have a moving goalpost and ambitions. There are other things which I want in life, but speaking from the financial point of view, this is how I envision it. A well off artist.


The old man had a slight smile on his face and he asked, what I was doing to achieve this.

I am writing each day. I am writing this down. I am writing because I am a writer. If I’m not writing this, or working on my own stories, I write for my wife’s project. She’s been an artist her whole life.
I’m also drawing and painting, a bit of struggle, since I’m a writer at heart. My dear wife is also giving me piano lessons. I want to be her last student. I want her to retire and concentrate on her art. Our art.

In spirit of the teachings of the young man from Barbados, who was mentored by Abdullah, I also envision my atelier. Living in the dream fulfilled. Becoming what I inevitably will become, since I believe.
I’m also getting her visa ready. My atelier is not in this godforsaken country. I’ll bring her back with me, now that I have learned what I could not learn back home.

His blue eyes shimmered. Well done he said. You should not stay at Billy’s. Move on, deeper inland and explore. This place is a junkyard of ideas not executed. Your idea, your vision should be. Will be.

He was gone, dissolved into the air. He left me with a single word. “believe”. I know what it means, I read the books.

The daily terminal was not kind to me, and I spent some time putting things in storage. Then I logged off for the day, thinking about were to go next.
 
I remember and correct me if I am mistaken there was a crashed spaceship quite large with its wing sticking up at a 45 degree angle and it used to be a popular spot to hunt
 
Equi said:
I remember and correct me if I am mistaken there was a crashed spaceship quite large with its wing sticking up at a 45 degree angle and it used to be a popular spot to hunt
Click to expand...

I remember something like that too, quite a while back. Back when you could still trap mobs, overamp an opalo, and sweat was 15ped for 1k.
I think there were bery's around there and molisk too.
It's funny how things looked better back then, more soulful, less empty and sterile.

In general there is a feel in video games, where the graphics improve, become more realistic, almost hyper realistic, but there is a loss of art, something ineffable.
I fear for the unreal update. Remembering the cryengine update and losing all those nice things. Maybe they could be brought back, but we need someone with artistic direction. Someone who remembers. I fear, and thus I enjoy what we still have before it is gone.
 
Maybe we can rebuild Hadesheim it was lost in the update, now it’s just a crater with robots. Hadesheim was really cool to have a big city, I fear that art was lost not for any other reason than lazyness
 
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