MMORPG.com writer, Carolyn Koh, recently had the opportunity to check out Entropia Universe's Next Island. Next Island was created by David Post and is being developed by Neverdie Studios. Developers hope that Next Island will attract more females and casual gamers to try out the combat-less environment. Check out Carolyn's preview of Next Island and then let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

“We hope to attract women and casual gamers into the world of MMOs with Next Island,” said founder David Post, “Players who’ve never played MMOs will be eased into the genre, while veteran players can relax in a virtual paradise.”

Read more of Carolyn Koh's Entropia Universe: Next Island.

How does this work with the original game?, or is this the original game? - I don't understand?

its the original game but you can choose your world you will play on .

yep same game, different planets. So you choose the planet and theme you wanna play in. Calypso (the original planet), ROCKtropia that has a darker rock/metal theme to it and now Next Island that has a tropical theme to it, and many more planets to come all with different themes.

I'm glad to see that the Swedish developers are still making money with their quite unique project. It's a very nice game and I'd love to play a non-roulette version of it someday.

Originally posted by Shari

How does this work with the original game?, or is this the original game? - I don't understand?

 

The original game "Project Entropia" consisted of just one world "Calypso" and the 2 space stations near it.

The game has expanded to become the "Entropia Universe" which now contains 3 different worlds with more comming this year.  Each world will be owned by different People or Orginizations and developed by different development studios.  They all exist on the same Gaming Platform which uses Cryengine2 the same gaming engine as Crysis.

You can think of each of the new worlds (Planets) as Franchises in the "Entropia Universe" and each will have its own theme and feel, aimed towards different audiences.

The first planet "Calypso" is a sci-fi futeristic space colonization planet with alien monsters and robots.

Rocktropia is a music themed planet with Dragons, Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves etc.. and streaming music in different areas. Different musicians have been involved with people like Lemmy from Motorhead being spotted from time to time playing around the area which has been named after him.

Planets in the brew for the near future are Arkadia(space archeology and treasure hunting,) Cryene(looks like it will be based mroe on mythology,) Planet Michael (Michael Jackson themed planet,) and another one which will have some of the more famous monsters from movies.

This article was about Next Island though, it is a Tropical Resort Planet with a theme on Time Travel.  The idea being that they will release different time destinations as the game progresses that you can go and explore.  The Ice Age, Ancient Greece, and the Amazon seem to be what the first ones will likely be.  The main planet in current times though has plenty to explore on its own though even without the time travel with Jungles and Desarts and Tropical Spas even a recreation of Carolines Comody Club.

The idea behind the "Universe" is that you have one avatar which can play on any of them, and travel between planets (for a fee) as you choose.  It is designed so that most people will spend a majority of their time on their Home Planet.  But travel as well as import/exports between planets is and will be a common practice.

They all share the same exchange rate of 1usd to 10ped(in game dollars) and the markets of all planets in turn affect the markets on the others.

It truely is a "Universe" and im eagerly looking forward to not just Next Island and what it has to offer, but the entire Universe as it expands.

Narfi

so the different worlds have different gameplay styles?

Originally posted by Shari

so the different worlds have different gameplay styles?

 

The game controles and interface are the same, though in the future different planets may convince Mind Ark (the platform developers) to create specific features for their planet.

Time travel is an expample of something that as far as I know is only going to be on Next Island, I dont know how it will work or if it will be drasticly different from the way the interface works on different planets or not.

For the most part  your skill sets, tools and weapons all work the same from planet to planet. With Planets haveing the option to restrict items from other planets if they choose to. (so far I have not seen any such restricions on the current 3 planets, and Ive traveled to each of them)

narfi

I forgot to add that one such restriction that has been mentioned would be that normal weapons wouldnt be allowed back at the ice age. But again, I am not sure how all of that would work.

narfi

The way you can travel from one game/planet/world to the other is by teleporting. You just go to any teleport station in any of the games/worlds and then you choose where you want to teleport. There is a fee in ingame currency(same in all worlds) for this of course.

The interaction with the environments would be the same but the environments themselves will be different. I think is a cool idea and makes everything more interesting. 

The time travel is even cooler. Imagine going to dinosaurs age but not being able to carry on your weapons. Or to go in Roman times. Probably in the future they will have all these.

Sounds interesting.

Originally posted by sudo

I'm glad to see that the Swedish developers are still making money with their quite unique project. It's a very nice game and I'd love to play a non-roulette version of it someday.

 Yep, I agree :)

lol... I've been spawn camped by mobs since I created my avatar 2 days ago.  The game is in alpha stage.  The very first time I log in, I get killed INSTANTLY by a mob.  Then those mob move to the respawn point camp you there.  You can not outrun them or doe anything else.  I've been a punching bag fro the AI mobs  for the last two days.  Game staff did not help after I submited a ticked.  Sad.  0/10.  This is just a scheme borderlining scam.  Stay away.

This game at it's heart is pure gambling.  You can put any nice face on it you like, it does not change what it is.

Originally posted by Shari

How does this work with the original game?, or is this the original game? - I don't understand?

To you and anyone else even pondering this game, read this thread first. Don't follow the path others have before you.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/302771/General-Review-for-Entropia.html

The idea of Entropia is neat, I won't deny that. However, it does not change what it is. It's simply just a scam. This is even coming from a fan and even somewhat of an advocate for RMT, if that means anything to you. 

i played the original entropia just a few weeks, so my knowledge is limited.

if you say, that the financial system behind entropia is gambling, you are most propably not wrong. it is a mixture between roulette and poker. that means, if you go and play against the bank like with roulette or slotmachines, you will loose longterm. no chance to win. it is mathematically impossible. that means, the usual way of getting rich in MMOs, does not work. you cant just grind like hell and become a mllionaire. if that would work, they would go bankrupt, because ingame currency is fully exchangeable to real money.

but it is also like poker. of course the casino always takes its rake (fee) whatever you do and they will make money. but if your winrate against other players is higher than your lossrate due to the (indirect) rake, you become a winning player. if you manage this, entropia becomes at least a true F2P game for you. this means, you have to focus on trade and other services, with winnings from players, and not out of the environment solely. unfortunately this is harder in entropia than it is with online-poker, trust me. and it became harder as more as the economy evolved.

i like the world of entropia very much, it is really great, and i guess i will have a look at this new planet. but i am also sure that item decay, ammunition consumption and other moneysinks, which are huge, will drive me crazy again. unfortunately i did not find my way so far to have fun in entropia while spending just the usual 10-15$ per month. and i tried hard to do so and to love this game. perhaps it is my prefered playstyle which does not match to the way you must play this game, in order to not waste a ton of money.

finally i would strongly recommend: if you login, in order to become rich with this game, you better play poker ;)