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Our own Richard Duffek had a chance to quiz Marco Behrmann of MindArk, the makers of Project Entropia, about the game's progress and his take on many hot button issues in the industry.
You can read the full article here. Dana Massey |
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5/31/05 8:54:07 PM#2
Other games have characters that start with basic Martial Arts skills if they don't start with a weapon. If they include Martial Arts for their beginning players, so should Project Entropia. Hasn't MindArk even heard of Martial Arts? Warning: I could be on NoDoz caffeine pills so I hope I don't post anything outrageous! |
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6/01/05 4:32:13 AM#3
If they really turn so much money (do they? 59M this year alone? 100.000 people investing $100 on average a month doesn't even bring that much in 4 months. And I don't even believe 100.000 people play PE. Either they lie to attract people or they have some real crazy spenders that spend so much) they should afford a good dev team an make the game better. Game feels very outdated, graphics is poor, performance is poor, lag in cities where there are more people at the same time is unbearable, user interface is horrible ... |
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6/01/05 4:43:27 AM#4
I agree with most thigns you say, but i don't think he is lying about the $$turnoever, keep in mind he is not implying the company made 59mill in 4months, that is just how much money was moving in and out of PE at the time. |
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6/01/05 5:55:01 AM#5
The only problem I have with PE is that the devs refuse to add a quest system. I guess they are afraid it could disrupt their economy. Which I understand, but its still a downer. Oh, and why no PE section on mmorpg.com? |
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Puoltry
Apprentice Member
Joined: 8/04/04
Leadership in a MMO is nothing more than a popularity contest. |
6/01/05 6:57:25 AM#6
Great concept here but i dont think it will ever fly. The bottom line here is these are just games.Do the math and 15 bucks a month is about 50 cents a day.This is completly affordable,even for a kid cutting lawns in the summer.If i invest 15 dollars in PE its 30 PED'S but it converts back to 15 dollars and thats it. Next thing ya know Century 21 or any real estate firm gets involved and they get their 7% cut on top of everything else.I believe that if most games went to this business model it would kill the entire genre. Why should we pay for every single item to advance our characters when we havent really had to do so in the last 10 years? I just dont think the general public would be convinced this is a good idea at all.It does look as though the "pay to play" concept is going to be taken to the next level.Thats too bad because i am more concerned about my retirement and saving money than i am about playing a game where i would have to invest real money to play it beyond 15 bucks a month. Want to ENJOY an mmo? Dont start a guild and dont be a leader or volunteer to be coleader or captain. Just play the damn game:) |
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6/01/05 7:57:00 AM#7
Martial Arts is a triggered skill in Project Entropia, meaning that you have a number of other skills to trigger this one. But it's true in Project Entropia you start with absolutely nothing except for some basic clothes. This however doesn't mean you can't do anything!
I don't think there ever will be a quest system in PE, and I think that's good, it's a virtual universe after all, this is one of the things that makes this game different from the 1001 quest like games. Instead of quest there are player organised events (Fashion shows, melee combat contests, capture the mansion, ...) and sometimes city's all of the sudden get attacked by robot forces. At the moment there is a competition running organised by creators, it's a home decoration contest, the ones with the most beautifull homes win! The price is a full set of a new high end armor (Supremacy armor), it'll be the first full set excisting of that armor!
The big advantage of this system is that it's 100% up to you how much you wanna deposit, their or people that limit the amount they deposit to 10$/month, their or people that deposit 100$/week. It's totally up to you! (15 dollar=150ped btw not 30 :p). You can still play even if you haven't deposited the last months. Offcourse it's an entirely new system, but I think it's a better one. I gives you the opportunity to be free, you can do what you want! You don't get forced to do "boring" quests, you don't get forced to deposit. It's all up to you. |
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6/02/05 12:54:58 PM#8
To get back toDiletti's post: The first things you say is that there aren't 100,000 players in PE. Very true, but what Mindark says is that they have 100,000 REGISTERED users. Their not saying that they have that many people playing, they ar just saying tha, that many people have registred. PE might have a little less than 10,000people playing in it. It is up to you to decide if you want to deposit or not. Some people don'teven deposit in the game and come out with 100s of dollars when they stop playing or take a break. Personally, i have seen people invest maybe $1000 in PE and they have come out with 12,000. I am amazed with many of the stories that i see and hear daily when i play PE. All you need to do is invest maybe $20-30 and you are set for several months in PE.
It is definitelyup to all of you you, but you are missing out on a good game. |
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6/02/05 6:51:26 PM#9
PE being a casino is not even close to the truth.. I have played PE for over 2 years and I can tell you that there is no such thing as luck in this game, it's just like in sports for example.. the best team wins. and this game is not a game where you just go out and buy ammo and kill something (just like in any other game). This game is about increasing your avatar skills, get rl experience about it, meet good friends, get a nice appartment or house and decorate it, attend at special events, try to claim a land and get fee from hunters and miners in the area + other things I prolly forgot to mention... and as you can see this game has plenty times more things to offer than other games.. and from what I can see on your post.. you haven't played PE for much more than a week :P Another great thing with PE is that it constantly is evolving.. meaning new stuff, places things, skills etc. are introduced almost every month and therefore you might not get bored with it :) I know that PE is the game of the future and will live forever :) |
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6/02/05 7:36:49 PM#10
Well I played it for a few months and put a total of about $30 just to buy a starter weapon etc. I got bummed out by the fact that I never seemed to earn enough to cover my item decomposition so i always seemed to be slipping behind (which I guess is the whole idea). My real question is whats going to happen if this game tanks financially ? What happens to the folks who have put in hundreds or thousands of dollars on items and real estate only to see it go "poof". ?? +-+-+-+-+-+ |
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6/03/05 12:57:05 AM#11
My wife and I played the game for nearly a year - and sunk quite a bit of money into it. Marco and the rest of MA need to get their heads out of their heinies and pay attention to the important things in the game. Currenly they have a high turnover with the game simply because it's glorified gambling. The long time users are still playing simply because they've invested so much time and energy into it - they feel trapped. A very few people have actually made a profit, and those stick around because it *is* a fun game. If the game tanks? Read the License Agreement - players are entitled to the amount of money that they've deposited, no more - and there are plenty of legal loopholes to prevent you from even getting that. Many players that have tried to withdraw their money have had to wait well more than 6 months before getting it - some more than a year. Every patch that's released destroys a little bit more of what people like about the game without adding much at all. Content updates are rare and superficial. The only aspect of the game that's guarenteed to keep you ingame and with money is resale - which means prices ingame go up. In a typical MMO that's not a big deal, in PE every pec (1/10th of a cent) counts - and counts big. I think the idea is workable - I just don't think MA is very interested in making it so. |
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6/19/05 10:25:56 AM#12
I have been playing PE for roughly 1.5 years and I can only say one thing. For every update they release, the game gets more and more expensive. And they also promise a lot of content that never succeeds to deliver what was promised. I can take many examples of how they profit on the costs of players by changing or implementing new "features" : *They decreased the running speed of players, forcing them to take more hits from monsters and wearing more armor. This causes the armors to decay and give MA (MindArk) more money. *They switched the loot system from loots everytime to loots every now and then, claiming the loots to be higher once you got them. This didn't work and you can make horrible losses now if you are unlucky. And being unlucky in PE is the majority of players. Also the items in the loots has decreased more and more since this system was introduced, leading me and many others to suspect that this system was introduced to make the hunting more and more expensive without the players noticing. *Newer armors and weapons have higher decay compared to the older ones. When a business grows it has to make it cheaper for it's customers. MA on the other hand makes it more and more expensive, which could be a sign of either greed or bad economy. Either way, nothing good for a company who wants happy customers. And this makes PE an unsafe bet to place your money in. *Skill system. The skills are some of the most important factors when it comes to profit from the main activities. Hunting, mining and crafting. The last VU (Version Update) introduced a new skill system. The old system had the same build as the one in Morrowind. Meaning that if you used low end items (weapons mostly) you got more skills but did less damage. And also meant relatively cheap skills. Now, with the new system, the players are forced to use guns and first aid packs, mining equipment etc, with as high decay and dmg as possible. And also the skill slowdowns has been moved further, so a new player reaches around level 3000 in a skill with ease (and get hooked), but after this it is more or less impossible to reach higher ranks. With the old system, it was easy to reach 9k in a skill, although it took a lot of time. Now you simply can't reach level 9k in a skill if you are not willing to hunt minimum 6 hours a day with the most expensive guns/armors/FAPs (FAP = Fast Aid Pack). And when I say "most expensive equipment, I am talking about items in a total of around 20.000$. Even so, you need around 20 years to reach there, compared to the 3 years before. And with more expense. Much more. And what's even worse, you don't gain experience, or very little of it, on enemies that are low leveled, meaning you MUST hunt the monsters that require expensive gear to hunt. Basically, the skilling is gone, and so is the addiction level. Crafting was made impossible since you got no skills in the crafting of lowend items, and since you need skills to craft high-end items, you are stuck. Meaning that the miners has noone to sell the minerals to. *Sweat Gathering is a specific part of the game that is there to get you hooked. "What is sweat?" you say? Well, sweat is exactly what it sounds like. When you are a newbie you can gather this from animals and mix it with a mineral you mine up from the ground to get what can be compared to mana in other games. Fuel for mindforce chips. Now, this ability only exists until you reach a level around 110 or get high skills in other areas. Then suddenly one day when you log in, your ability to gather sweat is lost. No skill in the entire game has a cap, meaning you can get infinite levels on them, except from this one. You can sweat some animals and get enough to get a taste of PE. Then you are disabled and have to deposit money, or do it the hard way by collecting fruits, visiting an oilrig in a PvP zone, trading (which is hard without funds) or some other boring and timeconsuming activity. And no, MA would never go bankrupt from people gathering sweat. You get 1-5 bottles every time you succeed and it takes 5-6 tries to succeed normally. Each bottle is worth around 2 pec in MARKET VALUE. But the TT value (which is what the economy is based on, and means the actual worth of an item if you send it to a trade terminal, not getting the money directly from a player) is just 1 pec / 500 bottles. To Gain even 10 ped (1$) you would need 500.000 bottles. And each try takes around 15 seconds. Now figure, would it be possible to make MA bankrupt by sweating? No. This has to be a way for MA to get you hooked, because they simply can't lose anything on removing the cap from the skill. Marco : A unique aspect of Project Entropia is that a player may elect to transfer PED back into real life currency... |
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6/20/05 1:41:28 AM#13
Fascinating post Mr Kellogs, thanks for the information and your thoughts... It basically confirms most of what I found in the few months I played PE. For many reasons, I just cant see it lasting much longer... im happy to be proved wrong but the graphics are already pretty dated, its not much fun to play and like you said its VERY hard to get in front, if not almost impossible. Which leads me back to my main concern.... what happens to the folks who have invested thou$ands of bucks... I can see court cases... but no doubt MA has a fine print clause to deal with this event. +-+-+-+-+-+ |
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7/09/05 8:53:25 PM#14
Razorback: It's not even fine print. In their license agreement it states that you are only entitled to the amount of money that you've actually deposited, and if the company goes bankrupt they really don't *have* to give anything back. Their agreement is comparitively short in relation to most other MMORPGs, so if you want to take a look it shouldn't take you more than about 15 minutes to read through it. Essentially, the game is there to turn a profit for MA, and the users/consumers are getting screwed - they will continue to get screwed, and I doubt that that will change at all. As unfortunate as it is - I think the idea is workable, but the company is simply running it into the ground. I'm willing to cope with lower end graphics if it's made up for in gameplay, but their gameplay is decreasing faster than the graphics have... |
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9/06/05 9:48:10 AM#15
Why does PE cost $50 weekly to hunt? Why can I kill 12 monsters in a row without receiving anything in loot? Why does someone kill a real easy creature and receive a loot of 500 ped? Why do I get nothing for killing a huge drone robot? Why can't I sell my looted/crafted items anymore in the general marketplace? Why don't I get any skills when I craft? Why does only 1 new player in 20 or 30 stay and play? Why do u get a crappy (zero value) weapon for successfully mentoring a new player? When I deposit $50 (weekly), why does it take 200 ped ($20) to repair everything for a week? Why do the 2 or 3 populated areas look like ghost towns on weekday nights? Answer these questions Marco... Its just plain wrong....
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9/17/05 5:18:21 AM#16
[quote]Originally posted by MrKelloggs Truth : They don't. They impose drastical changes onto them instead. Like the ones mentioned above. |
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4/29/06 2:39:14 PM#17
I know this thread is almost a year old, but I would just like to say thanks, especially to MrKelloggs for taking the time to write about his experience. I was downloading the game when I read your post and cancelled it as soon as I finished reading this.
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5/31/06 10:04:43 PM#18
Project Entropia suck :)))))) This Creature dont carry any LOOT !!!!!! Opsss i just kill Marco |
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7/31/06 9:45:40 PM#19
HI IM A TRADER I MADE 1 THOUSAND DOLLERS AND NEVER PUT MONEY IN THIS GAME IS EXELENT :D
LawL azz :D |
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7/31/06 10:02:51 PM#20
LawL azz :D |
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