more transparency and addressing other critical issues

girtsn

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Girts Smilgs Niedra
Dear MA (yes this is not for developers but management, and in forum since is the only public channel we have).

Think we would all gain from more transparency on some things in game and in the way it is run. Also there are some urgent issues that require action, and long overdue.

1. transparency - meetings with players is a good idea, but then the selection criteria and the meeting content itself should be known to all the players - the current implementation puts you in a very bad light regardless on how innocent and good intended it might be
  • referring to meetings that took place referred before
2. transparency - claims about previous and/or current advantages for players due to links with MA should be investigated and actions taken
  • most notably revelations of EMW on Skalman and things he could do according to http://www.entropiaplanets.com/threads/anyone-remember-these-threads.21607/
  • other rumors, pretty sure you have received support cases about other suspicious activities that hint for inside links
  • since this is a rce game, crimes and corruption in it are also have a very real impact and puts the game in a bad place unless addressed properly
3. RCE - putting avatar transfers out of the black transactions zone by making a legal procedure to transfer. transaction fee can still very well be taken and skill amount can be decreased according to what ESI reduction would do, also it can be made mandatory to rename the avatar in this process.
  • you are very well aware that the transfers happen all the time regardless being legal or not, and in some instances (according to credible sources) you have helped to transfer the ownership. please make it available to all not selected few. again this is rce, transactions should be allowed and encouraged.
4. transparency - clarify if hunting/mining activities on taxed areas will decrease the tt return by tax % and if so is it the full tax % that would be deducted

5. critical issue - waves - a pattern that can easily be exploited

6. critical issue - other loot patterns - e.g. significant drops for returning avatars and better chances for often switching the target - issue is the predictable pattern which can be exploited

7. RCE - please allow boxes to be bought for peds - you cannot call it rce if certain things cannot be bought with the ingame currency. it can still be a slightly different rate, but it must be possible. You are very well aware people are withdrawing and then buying boxes anyway.

8. critical issue - the cancellation or worse of the crit buffs - it is unacceptable to market crit buffs with one hand and then nerf them completely at the same time keeping other dpp improvements (imk2) intact
  • stats and behavior of high turnover hunting indicate that crit buffs lower the tt return % and point out that the loot 2.0 averages for high turnover have a major deviation in real application cases (97% vs 92%) - why? - and "they should not" is not an answer
  • why did not go the hinted way of introducing decay for the rings?
  • why crit buff items did not get included in the efficiency calculation?
  • why every unlimited buff had to be terminated if the main imbalance was a limited armor introduced before buff stacking?

9. RCE - please stop the items showing tt value and not tt-able. Same point goes for soulbound items - they have no place in an RCE.

10. Critical issue - allow to lock items by avatar to better prevent accidental tt

11. Transparency - publish really expensive loots like big esi in the rare loot section

12. Transparency - show dpp stats in weapon stats, if you say dpp is still relevant (better loot composition) then dpp should be clear for advertised item stats, currently they only reveal durability rest is gambling

For the community.
Would suggest we try to push MA to do something about the mentioned issues by means of support cases and bumping the thread for better chances of being noticed -> addressed. If you don't agree with some of the suggestions, indicate only the ones you do (thus numbering of the list). Also if you have other relevant and reasonable ideas please post them here I will add to the opening post if it matches this simple criteria. Since we have no vote terminal in-game, the only way for us to communicate our wishes is over this channel and support cases.
Please keep this thread clean, keep your opinions about me out of it (thus not including est in it).
 
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7. critical issue - please allow boxes to be bought for peds - you cannot call it rce if certain things cannot be bought with the ingame currency. it can still be a slightly different rate, but it must be possible. You are very well aware people are withdrawing and then buying boxes anyway.

Yes, thats a very good idea to reduce their cashflow to make girts happy...
 
i dont agree with main big issue which name is "Girts Smilgs Niedra"
 
complaining just to complain and just because I said it and of course this is off-topic, as said if you don't like some of the items from the list, just don't help to make them happen
anyway brief analysis of the proposal in the opening post with impact of implementing the change

no impact - there is no cashflow increase from withdrawing and then buying boxes, financial report wise it is at best a fake way to increase the deposit statistics if hiding the part that the money came from in-game in the first place, at worst its still a fake way - none of us would like any financial decisions to be made by such manipulation

no impact - the only thing MA gains cash wise from withdrawing and then buying boxes for it are the fees of withdrawal + currency conversion and any fees from buying boxes - as said the rate could still be different but it should be possible otherwise it is not rce

better - MA could also lose from it if the person withdrawing to buy boxes changes his/her mind and keeps the money out, there is no such risk in buying boxes for peds

better - MA could lose on currency conversion rates changing between the transactions

better - players doing it would gain by
* not having to wait for withdrawal times
* not being questioned by their tax services on suspicious transactions
* not being subject to losing on currency rate changes in the withdrawal time

Yes, thats a very good idea to reduce their cashflow to make girts happy...
 
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I think I would also like the tax system rules to be out in the open so everybody can understand them. Loot patterns should not be predictable, this actually goes without saying but I agree it has to be repeated ever louder until fixed. It's been going on for too long. Of all the rest I know too little to have an opinion. I just stopped buying boxes because it binds peds into inconvertible items I have no use for within foreseeable time.
 
"we dont know 100% how tax works so lets just assume 5% does not mean 5%"
 
I wonder if this thread will be deleted too as the one where you talk about ... **** can't say because mods will delete..... WHY that thread was deleted anyway ?
 
Yes, thats a very good idea to reduce their cashflow to make girts happy...

technically the purchase of boxes creates a liability for MA... not revenue.

Revenue is from decay. When you buy a box MA gives you a 10 ped liability. Whether you use the UA or pills or not is irrelevant. All boxes do is increase the amount of cash reserves MA is required by law to have in the event all items must be liquidated for TT value.
 
lets see if the moderators drop the points 1 and 2 and/or lock/remove this thread. if so, my trust in any fairness of how this forum is run is gone as I am only referring to facts, and this post is not at all about my kick from the soc...
 
I think I would also like the tax system rules to be out in the open so everybody can understand them. Loot patterns should not be predictable, this actually goes without saying but I agree it has to be repeated ever louder until fixed. It's been going on for too long. Of all the rest I know too little to have an opinion. I just stopped buying boxes because it binds peds into inconvertible items I have no use for within foreseeable time.

Actually a lot of clarity could be made in a variety of places in Entropia. Attachments for example (since the difference in skill gains was not measurable (in fact was worse) in my tests. Too many things in game are quite vague and they could leverage the in-game buffs to do it.
 
Actually a lot of clarity could be made in a variety of places in Entropia. Attachments for example (since the difference in skill gains was not measurable (in fact was worse) in my tests. Too many things in game are quite vague and they could leverage the in-game buffs to do it.

Or not. This is one of the great things about Entropia... to figure out certain aspects, you needed community effort, to compare results of extensive tests.

As for pushing MA to do things by chocking the support which is already far behind... or bump a thread full of accusations, false assumptions and rumos (author says in OP that there are rumors that blabla), no one should take these seriously. NONE of these is critical, not even an issue, these are just biased opinions, things some cry baby doesn't like and continues to have tantrums.
I hope this vendetta against MA and some groups of players stops, because, it it was explained, everything is over a kick out of a society without notification.
 
Eve, I disagree. STRONGLY.

A kick out of a society may be what triggered this particular thread.

However the issues discussed are underlying issues that this game has always had.
They need to be addressed regardless of the messenger. (Don't shoot the messenger)

Your arguments seem personally motivated and do not address the underlying issue imo.
Don't stick your head in the sand. (Even if it is what a majority of players do)
 
I pretty much agree with everything girts has to say besides number 6. Many people see a noob hit big and complain because of the green eyes. But when we see actual mid level players hitting big we expect it as fate. And its only because of this that we believe there is unfair loot patterns.
 
entropia X files incoming
 
and better chances for often switching the target - issue is the predictable pattern which can be exploited

Care to elaborate?

I have missed previous threads it seems.

I do suggest creating a guide on third party website, youtube? about loot patterns and other cool "features" of the game. See how MA reacts if instead a handful, hundreds will start doing it?

In another MMO I complained about group/raid contant beeing soloable, complained few times on forums (got even temp banned for discussing it) and support tickets, nothing was done.

When I posted youtube guide how to do it, content got disabled and fixed next patch. It works and will work with MA too.
 
Looking at this thread and the others it's safe to say.

You can exploit and cheat all you want without any fear of the ban hammer. ^^,
 
Think we would all gain from more transparency on some things in game and in the way it is run. Also there are some urgent issues that require action, and long overdue.

1. transparency - meetings with players is a good idea, but then the selection criteria and the meeting content itself should be known to all the players - the current implementation puts you in a very bad light regardless on how innocent and good intended it might be
... ** since this is a rce game, crimes and corruption in it are also have a very real impact and puts the game in a bad place unless addressed properly

3. transparency - putting avatar transfers out of the black transactions zone by making a legal procedure to transfer. transaction fee can still very well be taken and skill amount can be decreased according to what ESI reduction would do, also it can be made mandatory to rename the avatar in this process.
** you are very well aware that the transfers happen all the time regardless being legal or not, and in some instances (according to credible sources) you have helped to transfer the ownership. please make it available to all not selected few. again this is rce, transactions should be allowed and encouraged.
...

For the community.
Would suggest we try to push MA to do something about the mentioned issues by means of support cases and bumping the thread for better chances of being noticed -> addressed. If you don't agree with some of the suggestions, indicate only the ones you do (thus numbering of the list). Also if you have other relevant and reasonable ideas please post them here I will add to the opening post if it matches this simple criteria. Since we have no vote terminal in-game, the only way for us to communicate our wishes is over this channel and support cases.

We have always wanted more transparency. I don’t think we’ll ever have any or enough that we’ll be satisfied with.

Girts, I know your name and those you refer to for a long time now, but I am neither online nor sociable enough nowadays for you to know me lol, but despite the efforts I fear a thread like this will only be forgotten soon and some (not all) issues or concerns are swept under the rug again, no matter how many support tickets or bumps are made. It doesn't mean I don't believe things will change but still the same overriding issue exists about lack of communication from MA.

Players visiting or meeting MA has occurred since the early days but the discussions or intention is probably a lot different now than it was eg 12+ years ago, perhaps it’s fair to say far more innocent back then compared to now.

Key points for me are the ideas around crime and corruption, unfair advantage and uneven playing field, very important given this is an RCE, with people’s real money involved. Whatever MA might say about the system and dynamics and returns, we can never believe we are all equal when stuff is happening in the background or behind closed doors or may be in breach of or ignoring the T&C everyone agrees to when we log in.

When have we actually seen MA publicly and appropriately address an important issue or community argument over the years? This is what stinks the most, the fact that the community knows that there are (potentially) unscrupulous or unfair things happening, in-game and offline, and the company behind it don’t say or do anything to restore confidence in its playerbase. I'd very very pleasantly surprised if such a thing would happen here in light of recent disclosures.
 
bump it up now
 
added crit buffs to the list, updated waves
 
technically the purchase of boxes creates a liability for MA... not revenue.

Revenue is from decay. When you buy a box MA gives you a 10 ped liability. Whether you use the UA or pills or not is irrelevant. All boxes do is increase the amount of cash reserves MA is required by law to have in the event all items must be liquidated for TT value.


If you look at their latest financial report:

Unconsumed player holdings: 102.3mil SEK
Cash and bank balances: 9.4mil SEK

Less than 10% of their player liabilites are covered by cash. I'm not sure what the law is, but it's clearly not much of a requirement (hence the 60-day wait on withdrawals). Perhaps they use share premium reserve to cover player holdings, even though that's still only about 30mil SEK.


Also, is UA even booked as a liability? It can't be converted to PED or cash, I assumed that was one of their main motivations for creating it.


On another related note... I keep reading about people allegedly buying tons of boxes then withdrawing them and repeating the process. Since 95% of the box contents are player-bound, how does this work exactly?
 
If you look at their latest financial report:

Unconsumed player holdings: 102.3mil SEK
Cash and bank balances: 9.4mil SEK

Less than 10% of their player liabilites are covered by cash. I'm not sure what the law is, but it's clearly not much of a requirement (hence the 60-day wait on withdrawals). Perhaps they use share premium reserve to cover player holdings, even though that's still only about 30mil SEK.


Also, is UA even booked as a liability? It can't be converted to PED or cash, I assumed that was one of their main motivations for creating it.


On another related note... I keep reading about people allegedly buying tons of boxes then withdrawing them and repeating the process. Since 95% of the box contents are player-bound, how does this work exactly?

i know some people doing this. they buy like 5k boxes at once, open (opened) them on waves, cycled the UA once and sold the rings and then withdraw. you get around 90% of value back initially on UA, a few % in pills and some other useless crap. the rings usually make up for that difference. one person i know doing that got 4 seasonal rings in one season. those definitely made up for a lot of that lose. and that were only the seasonal ones.

but now i think it wont be as valuable anymore as the rins are going to drop in price a lot and the candy canes, easter eggs and x and y pills arent as valuable as before either and dont give that tt loot advantage anymore as they used to
 
Conspiracy Theories!!

Conspiracy Theories do not necessarily indicate there is a problem at all.

1. People LIE

2. People Inflate stories to make themselves more important

3. People LIE

4. If you accept every story disgruntled players make up as truth, well, what can anyone say.

5. PEOPLE LIE!!!

Thats my 2 cents worth
 
All items refundable by TTvalue

Spec. term used. All items should be refundable their remaining TT value
Make all items TTable, RCE.....referring those junk pills
as now MA TT terminal Help = breaking Law of customer rghts(misleading info provided )

Resnis
Ps. on good funktionality, add item lock(by Ava controlled) to minimize TT by error
 
Conspiracy Theories do not necessarily indicate there is a problem at all.

1. People LIE

2. People Inflate stories to make themselves more important

3. People LIE

4. If you accept every story disgruntled players make up as truth, well, what can anyone say.

5. PEOPLE LIE!!!

Thats my 2 cents worth

Reminded me of tv show 'House'......'Everybody lies'


Rgds

Ace
 
added points 9 and 10, thank you!
Spec. term used. All items should be refundable their remaining TT value
Make all items TTable, RCE.....referring those junk pills
as now MA TT terminal Help = breaking Law of customer rghts(misleading info provided )

Resnis
Ps. on good funktionality, add item lock(by Ava controlled) to minimize TT by error
 
Spec. term used. All items should be refundable their remaining TT value
Make all items TTable, RCE.....referring those junk pills
as now MA TT terminal Help = breaking Law of customer rghts(misleading info provided )

Resnis
Ps. on good funktionality, add item lock(by Ava controlled) to minimize TT by error

to be fair, many stores offer non refunable vouchers which can only be redemmed in their store. pills could be something similar, depending on the actual definition. i bet theres something in their EULA about them being able to do this
 
Spec. term used. All items should be refundable their remaining TT value
Make all items TTable, RCE.....referring those junk pills
as now MA TT terminal Help = breaking Law of customer rghts(misleading info provided )

Resnis
Ps. on good funktionality, add item lock(by Ava controlled) to minimize TT by error


So much bullshit.

When you bought the boxes you knew about the bound pills.
Either just use the pills or buy ammo packs.

Same as you knew about the viceroy armour being bound.
You want that tt-able as well?

Or the starter pack armour and amp?
 
X-pill = a pill

Well if x-pill is 5 Ped and fb legendarily doesn't work.
Thats the way I understand is A-pill is possible tt, but x-pill not ,so that small amount extra reload is worth 4 peds?
Or X2 even more?

If all these theories are truthful.
Don't kill me for that , just a thought.
 
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