Dude, where's my PED?

There is a large gaping hole in the boat that is Entropia Universe, and it’s sucking the peds out of the community faster than you can imagine. How many first hand accounts have you read about people’s losses being larger now than they were in years past? How many people do you know that have squandered tens of thousands of peds and left with nothing to show for it?

Hunting and mining returns are indeed worse than they’ve ever been before. There is no doubt about it. But it’s not Greedy Mindark, and it’s not the new MegaUbers and All Time Highs.

It’s taxes.

Now, more than any time in Project Entropia’s history, your activities are being heavily taxed. Taxes are not a totally new concept in Entropia, as they were introduced with the societal land areas on Amethera. But the emergence of the land owner as the first guaranteed profitable profession in Entropia has completely changed the landscape. The stakes are high to buy new land because the profits are obscene.

Maybe you’re thinking, “what’s 5% here and there on a few kills.” Let’s examine that idea with the following scenario. This is the story of four fictional players, all of whom have accomplish the unattainable in Entropia – one hundred percent efficiency! Think about that when you read their tales - each one of these players has completely mastered the game, yet they live out vastly different fates. They each start off with 10,000 ped on January 1, and the ability to hunt 20 hours a week, averaging 250 in ammo/decay an hour – a very modest playing schedule. Each of our players is on a very fixed income and is unable to deposit beyond their initial 10,000 ped.

Hunter #1 is named Deathifier. Deathifier likes to hunt Hogglo and Second Entities on Treasure Island. Unfortunately for him, he is subject to a 4% hunting tax. He has sustained continual losses and after 32 weeks he can no longer hunt in EU without finding a way to deposit or sell off some assets. He’s lost all 10,000 ped and as of September 1, he’s busted. Considering the fixed overhead costs, he paid the owner of his favorite area $135.00 a month. That's higher than my mobile phone and DirecTV bills put together.

Hunter #2 we’ll call Akoz. He’s into hunting competitions and likes to hunt young Neconu and various other non-unique mobs in the hopes of winning an item. Sadly for Akoz he’s paying a 5.5% tax for this dream. At that rate of tax, he has squandered his 10,000 ped into nothing in less than six months – 23 weeks to be exact. Akoz put a hefty $187 a month directly into the pocket of the contest organizer. That's a car payment for some people. Ouch!

Hunter #3 is named Neverdie. He’s primarily a miner but also likes to hunt some exotic big game. He’s in love with hearing the global sound, and pays a whopping 6.9% on CND to hear it often. Sadly for Neverdie, his 10,000 ped will be gone in a mere 19 weeks. $226 a month is the direct cost poor Neverdie had to pay just to play on this part of the map. Holy balls.

Hunter #4 is Pham. Pham is a sucker for Aurli, Krelts and Bots, and sticks 100% on Eudoria and Crystal Palace. Astonishingly, after a full year of using the exact same setup and skills as the first three players, Pham still has 10,000 ped in his account, and a whole lotta skills to go with them. In fact, Pham has learned that he can replay this scenario over and over, essentially guaranteeing profit for years to come. Although all four players efficiency is identical, Pham is the only one that has truly mastered the Entropia Universe. If you calculate "real world" efficiencies in these examples, these numbers go from shocking to horrifying.

When it comes to hunting and mining in taxed areas, Entropia is a zero sum game. If the guy who owns your favorite land area seems to have a lot of money, that’s because he does.

Yours.

So what are you going to do about?

what can i say .... + rep
and that part about pham ... i'm following his example. he is one truly clever and intelligent hunter.

well, i have the idea of not hunting/mining in taxable areas

I'm going to keep being sad about the fact I'm not rich in RL, just like about the fact that MA's PR wasn't effective enough back in the years to inform me about the game few years earlier..

It's not like people using ultra-efficient tools they got almost for free are not taking some % from the lootpool. It's not like MA themselves are not taking enough of the total sum we deposit in game. We are damned to loose money as a whole but each of us can get luckier than others and actually win. This is what keeps us trying. In the perfect world the average player would still loose.

Land owners bought the land. Yes most of us can't afford it but life is always unfair and richer one gets richer. It's not about EU only. If what Marco said about MA's income coming from decay only, then these landowners actually contributed these big sums of money into the lootpool. Hunting and mining on LA's has it's advantages too. There is usually just 1 type of mobs (unlike Eudoria), so you don't loose hunting speed, you can choose armor specially for this mob (saves money of fapping against mob that deals different type of damage), you don't waste ammo overkilling annoying smaller mobs with big gun you use for mobs you came to hunt here. For miners it often means more space, so they don't have to shoot all those small mobs after dropping each bomb.

But whats more important - you don't really HAVE TO go and hunt on land with those taxes. You can go to Eudoria and loose all your money there.

Taxes ? On what loot ?

1st i'd demand 1000 PED from Dub for using me as example
But on the other hand, he absolutely right.
You guys can call me a red commie (which is partially true ) but i HATE idea of taxation as we have now.
Im fine when it comes to paying money to MA since they do need them to cover their expenses for the service they provide. But do you think they actually provide a service we could not live without ?! (Yes, i also ageed to perticipate in LG VEEERY tentatively, i dont like the idea at all :s).
MA just could make the new continent absolutely free to hunt and full of various fun mobs which we would really appreciate to hunt. Or they could make maintaining less expensive for owners. Finally, they could make it taxable in some other way, like we have it in RL: you buy a license to hunt for some period of time at a fixed cost. I really really hate to split my profit with anyone. and the bigger the profit the more i hate it
Also consder that its more likely that only current landowners will win any more lands in future since they LEECHED ENOUGH PED from you to compete with anyone. When you hunt on a taxed land its only matter of time to your money to end up in MA and landowner pocket :/.

Pham, but you don't really have to think of those taxes as 'sharing your money'. You can forget about those % and just count loots as they are. If you are lucky, you'll frofit with taxes, if loot sucks - it SUCKS and 3 additional % is nothing comparing to what you loose in total. As I said in my previous post, hunting on LA's saves money too in some way.

MA could make such a continent but then what would Landowners do with those lands bought for big ammounts of money? No one would hunt there. LA's are near the only way to actually 'invest' in the game nowadays. Most of activities are pure gambling.

If I had money, I'd definitely buy myself a land. It's quite possible that I'd try to make it more welcoming to the players but as I hardly see any taxes lower than 3% I can guess keeping the land active costs enough money.

And yes, most likely current landowners will be fighting for those new lands. But old players selling thier uber-gear now that they looted or bought for funny money years ago can make some competition too. So will rich kids that simply can afford depositing so much. And guess what? I'm none of those. Dammnit!

Dub, you forgot one thing - people are getting profit now and then, even on taxed lands Also it is as easy to get bancrupt on non-taxed areas as it is on taxed ones. As for landowners and getting ped for nothing-that`s not that simple as you try to convince people it is. First that comes in mind that landowners, at least some of them, are trying to make nice environment for hunting/mining. For instance - you can go nd fight endless merps and 2 longu dominants and get pissed off in 30 mins or you can go to some land with big longus and hunt there without being attacked by trash mobs every 15 sec. Convinience. That`s the point.

In general imo you post isn`t well thought of, not to tell more

Pham - as a "red commie" you MUST like idea of sharing: besides somehow everyone forgot to mention why Pham is successful hunter - real matter And it has nothing to do with taxed/nontaxed lands.

So Dark Knights made 0% tax on their land?

Ive been fine for the last 3 weeks....breakin` even or better..... I dont hunt LA`s........just another whining post IMPO.....no disrespect intended Dub....

Nostrop said:

Pham - as a "red commie" you MUST like idea of sharing:

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Nostrop, in 'red commies' world the idea of sharing was pretty different. It was Landowner who had to share, not simple hard-working folks In early days of soviet country landowners were called 'kulaki'. Making money out of money was a kind of thing you wouldn't want to be caught doing back then. Ones that got cought came through the proccess of 'raskulachivanie', e.i. they were almost politely asked to give everything they had to the government because being that shamefuly rich while others who didn't have brains or were too lazy to organize a business weren't lol So Pham is being a REAL 'red commie' here

Nostrop said:

besides somehow everyone forgot to mention why Pham is successful hunter - real matter And it has nothing to do with taxed/nontaxed lands.

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Don't tell me it's because of wearing orange

Xen said:

So Dark Knights made 0% tax on their land?

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no .

That's a fantastic post from Dub! We were discussing exactly the same topic in the soc many times, but nobody managed to come up with such a clear message to be posted on EF. +rep

I 100% agree with that opinion. If we look at LAs and how popular they are, it's not difficult to estimate an impact on the loot pool. Even if we assume that only 20% of kills (in monetary terms, because 100 snables killed by 100 noobs on Eudoria equal to 1 kill of some kickass mob in some LA/CND) are taxed (which I think is a very modest assumption), and assuming average taxes are at 5%, it's a constant 1% outflow from the loot pool into PED cards of 10-20 people. Where would those money go? Most probably they would go into reinvestment/withdrawal, because it's technically impossible to spend all those money on hunting/mining. Which means that those money barely come back to the loot pool. Good for land owners (I'm honestly happy for Akoz ), bad for other players.

Now, 1% of the activity turnover is somewhat about MA charges us. So if we add the estimated 1% which go to land owners, it's 2%. What would happen if tomorrow MA announced that they double the fees? I'd say it would be a major uprising But it happened already, players pay those 2% out of their pockets.

P.S. This is not a whining post as I'm doing pretty ok overall (by mining outside LAs and hunting in LAs for fun & casual skilling only )

P.P.S. "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to dub again."

MudKicker said:

Ive been fine for the last 3 weeks....breakin` even or better..... I dont hunt LA`s........just another whining post IMPO.....no disrespect intended Dub....

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Well since your hunts have been "pretty fuggin sweet" for a couple weeks, I suppose we can dismiss things like math.

Whining? Please. I was one of the original land owners. I'm in a land owning soc. I have enjoyed withdrawing and spending your tax dollars, believe me. My post was simply to illustrate the detrimental effect of taxation on long term survival in EU. Further, the fact that these financial wounds are self-inflicted, yet send people crying about their returns is absolute insanity.

But hey, you've done OK for 3 weeks now so wtf do I know.

Dubs raises a very valid point – and I for one have never hunted or mined where I pay taxes. I can lose PED fast enough without help.

But I feel in a way it’s unfair to blame the landowners – they after all are only using what MA has built.

The real problem lies with the financial stability of MA itself and the strategies it uses to manage that.

A lot of people say MA live off the decay – which implies that somewhere all the deposits made sit in an account which MA reduces in line with decay. Fact is if you look at the MA accounts there is no large cash reserve recorded, there is no income stream from that reserve and, they would have to be reported.

So, MA lives off deposits (with a small reserve to balance cash flow and meet withdrawals eventually).

MA need to destroy PED value in game so that people deposit more. Hence decay, hence the costs of running LA’s, hence rental and if you want conspiracy theories hence high misses, various bugs etc. And, hence the need for players to fund marketing events (ATH) out of loot.

And LA’s themselves destroy in game PED when they are purchased and, hopefully for MA also bring in new cash to fund those PED’s.

Now there is nothing wrong in MA making a profit, indeed for the survival of the game it’s necessary. You just have to question the mechanism’s by which they go about it, the transparency – which is important for player trust and the level.

This is not an efficient method for us or MA - because what it ulimately does is creat a few people with enough leverage to withdraw large amounts to the real world. That is very different to an individual having the luck and skill to make a profit. And more money out means more deposits in needed.

Morat said:

But I feel in a way it’s unfair to blame the landowners – they after all are only using what MA has built.

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Just to clarify, I am in no way blaming land owners or land owning soc's for using their tax mechanism. That's what it's there for - knock yourself out.

I'm telling you, the committed player of above average intelligence, that if you're unhappy with your returns then get the hell out of taxed areas.

On the other hand if you can afford to pay another player $200 a month for a pure <insert mob here> spawn, I think that's fantastic. We need more people like you in the game!

Interesting challenge... obvious answer is to not hunt on taxed lands.
Less obvious answer would be to buy a land area of your own.

Do both of those things then hunt with an amped opalo on mobs that drop items with good tt+ and you can't lose.

Infact forget the second paragraph, if you buy a popular land area, and hunt with whatever you like.

VV

dub said:

I'm telling you, the committed player of above average intelligence, that if you're unhappy with your returns then get the hell out of taxed areas.

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You seem to be implying here that the loot pools are closed systems for different areas i.e. if you hunt on untaxed land you will get a better return.

This certainly doesn't match my experience - returns are pretty much the same everywhere over time. So while I agreee that taxation sucks money out of the loot system, ultimately this drain has to be spread across the game as a whole otherwise there would be lots of anomalies.

The same would be true of the money inserted into the loot pool by pk at the octagon for example - I don't think it all ends up in the pool of the server where the octagon is located.

interesting post miss/mr dub, never thought of taxation that way yes call me a blonde, but actually never thought about taxation at any way, i was just happy to hunt with some LA to focus on one particular mob.

this opened my eyes, yes i think i will stay away from Amathera for a while.
sorry landowners, yes i pour my cash to MA now.

Correct me if Im wrong dub, but the initial post was made for the single purpose of showing how much money the taxes make up, given that everything else is going 100% in balance.
If thats the case, I dont see the use of people starting to discuss "but thats not how the loots work" and stuff like that...

First of all, the major taxation comes from the game itself. 10% missing ration and 75% average dmg, period. Your hipothesys with 100% efficiency is interesting, but if is about Utopia, keep your whole theory into Utopia, not into Entropia. LA tax is already insignifiant compared to that.

Was already mentioned, but is plain hipocrisy from u to post this, u being in a land-owning society.

Another very important point is that you're moving the attention from the MAIN point: almost everybody in EU hunts stupid as period/mob/equipment. Is not taxing on LA's to blame.

LA taxating is same important as the clothes the player is using. If loots anything except peds, tax on that is calculated at tt value. I don't believe there is anybody counting on tt revenue, all of us counts of various materials/items and their markup.

Also, blame MA for not spawning globsters or hogglos or longu stalkers or caperons or daspletors in other places than taxable ones.

Also, if ur theory is true, can u explain me why there so many hunters/miners getting broke on Eudoria?

P.S.: maybe my first phrase was unclear: if u use a hipothesys from a specific system (utopia), the conclusion can be valable in a different system (entropia) only using a false rationament -> elementary logic

P.S.2: that gotta be clasified as the hardest try to popularize a false idea in these 11 month i play PE. Similar to di Avlo's in mining.

la aurora said:

Nostrop, in 'red commies' world the idea of sharing was pretty different. It was Landowner who had to share, not simple hard-working folks In early days of soviet country landowners were called 'kulaki'. Making money out of money was a kind of thing you wouldn't want to be caught doing back then. Ones that got cought came through the proccess of 'raskulachivanie', e.i. they were almost politely asked to give everything they had to the government because being that shamefuly rich while others who didn't have brains or were too lazy to organize a business weren't lol So Pham is being a REAL 'red commie' here


Don't tell me it's because of wearing orange

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I am 31 year old, born back to when it was called "zastoj" in Riga, which you may know was part Soviet Socialistic republic of Latvia and I really like history, especcially history of Russia so i believe I know how it was about "sharing". Though you got valid points but such an attitude was like 10% of time USSR existed.
So in this case Pham`s attitude to "sharing" only shows his attitude to life and other people. Maybe he can be called "red commie" but if you are showing such anknowledge of post-revolution activities perhaps you are familliar with word "dubovyj"?
Let me write short history part of USSR. Majority of people were workers. Good workers were living ok. But all that proletariat failed to understand other way of living. If you wasn`t standing whole day long operating some kind of machinery (hunting 24/7) you was evil and foe to them.
Which make me think - Dub - ain`t you "red commie" also?

Very good thread I never liked hunting on lands, in fact i cant remember even once

If i would pay taxes it would be for a super unique mob, for example if Tantardion would be brought to a land area. Otherwise its better to stick to old, secure Eudoria ^^

Kerham said:

First of all, the major taxation comes from the game itself. 10% missing ration and 75% average dmg, period. Your hipothesys with 100% efficiency is interesting, but if is about Utopia, keep your whole theory into Utopia, not into Entropia. LA tax is already insignifiant compared to that.

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I think Dub was using a best-case scenario for illustrative purposes only. So that we focus upon the issue of taxes rather than that of missed shots and the use of inefficient weapons. He recognises the fact that this an Utopian example when he states:

Dub said:

f you calculate "real world" efficiencies in these examples, these numbers go from shocking to horrifying.

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I am guilty of the "what's 5% here or there" attitude too. A small percentage isn't much in the short term, but as Dub demonstrates it is really really really important in the long term for the health of your ped card. I'm not saying I will completely give up hunting on LA's, because I do enjoy the variety and unique mobs that these LA's offer but I wills seriously consider doing the majority of hunt son untaxed lands.

Finally, I wonder how this thread will affect LA prices ->will they go down because maybe this will influence people to hunt on La's less and thus less income to the LA owner. Or up because it demonstrates just how much ped LA owners can make with a popular LA.



VV

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to dub again."

Baldurn said:

Very good thread I never liked hunting on lands, in fact i cant remember even once

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So you've been hunting Rippersnappers 24/7 then?

Konve said:

So you've been hunting Rippersnappers 24/7 then?

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You could stand in the water and shoot towards the land.

Nostrop,
unfortunately I'm a bit younger and I have much less interest in the history in general. So honestly speaking even though I know the meaning of the word 'duboviy' of course, I doubt it is the meaning you expect me to know )) May be if you remind me, I will understand what we dissagree on because now I fail to. Let me try to explain when I tried to correct you here:

"Sharing with others' and 'Getting a share from others' are two different things when talking both about human nature and history.

Pham said he didn't want to share his money with the landowner. In this case Pham is the representative of 'proletariat' that fails to agree with those evil 'kapitalists' right to be. So does Dub by the way, Pham actually agreed with the post he was replying to.

Landowner is the representative of the class that is not supported by any 'red commie'. He doesn't produce any good with his hands. He makes money from money getting part of what true workers earn. It's plain wrong in the soviet ideology and I can't recall any facts in my memory that would state otherwise.

You said Pham was expected to like the idea of 'sharing'. But this word requires some context to be interpreted in some particular way. The context was 'not sharing with LA owner', so your phrase was initentionally (or may be not) saying that as a 'commie' Pham should actually like to share some of his money with that 'kapitalist' wich in my opinion is a bit wrong.

I went to CND once, and tried some of the taxed land areas also. I came to the conclusion why? I got no better loot, but paid out some of it.

On CND I got better mining finds but spent 3x as many mines finding them.

I stopped going to taxed places, if they gave you more than normal non-taxed places I would consider it, but as far as I can see they don't...

Cheers

Kerham said:

Another very important point is that you're moving the attention from the MAIN point: almost everybody in EU hunts stupid as period/mob/equipment. Is not taxing on LA's to blame.

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Another swipe at the dummies ( players ) who aren't called Pham...our bad for not playing as long and not wanting to use pea shooters all the time. No doubt we are stupid from one perspective, but from ours, we are just playing the best we know how

Under Dub's analysis, it is quite scary how long peds would last if ppl hunted exclusively in LA's compared to Eudoria

All things being equal ofc.

I hunt and mine a lot in LA's and it seems to me, if people are losing money faster than is comfortable in general, more and more might consider such factors as tax - even if it compromised their experience of the game.

Apart from being a shame, it would distort the impact of tax on the pedcard, which is ultimately unfair to the landowners.

Vince Vaughn said:

Finally, I wonder how this thread will affect LA prices ->will they go down because maybe this will influence people to hunt on La's less and thus less income to the LA owner. Or up because it demonstrates just how much ped LA owners can make with a popular LA.

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Just a funny thought I had while reading this thread:

Anyone heard of the expression : Timing is everything.

I don't believe anything is a coincidense in EU or in EF. In just a month new LA's will be put out for sale in Amethera. So is this just a stunt for lowering the prices of the new LA's by scaring of potential buyers, making it easy for some players to aqquire the new LA's for themselves?


On the other hand, excellent post, Dub +rep