All Posts by Torschen

Originally posted by Dobbin

Originally posted by Torschen

ecator,

I understand if you are more qualified than most of the playerbase to loose money quickly. Unfortunately that doesn't automatically mean you are an "uber".

No doubt you are not getting into details because there are none......

I wanted to counter thread starter for being overtly biased. I know for FACT that you can play in EU without loosing, or loosing very little. I backed this giving some useful information of methods that work. I see no good facts given from the opposite camp, except the excpected, you loose if you cannot play, or don't bother to learn.

Obviously you cannot. Go back playing tetris online, or whatever it is you are good at.

FANBOY.......................

ecator,

I understand if you are more qualified than most of the playerbase to loose money quickly. Unfortunately that doesn't automatically mean you are an "uber".

No doubt you are not getting into details because there are none......

I wanted to counter thread starter for being overtly biased. I know for FACT that you can play in EU without loosing, or loosing very little. I backed this giving some useful information of methods that work. I see no good facts given from the opposite camp, except the excpected, you loose if you cannot play, or don't bother to learn.

Obviously you cannot. Go back playing tetris online, or whatever it is you are good at.

Originally posted by Atrebates

I played this game a short while back while looking for something new and found:

Sweating is entirely geared up to pissing you off enough to spend some money (PEDS)to try something else,such as hunting or mining.

Any equipment you buy  (including weapons) degrades at an alarmingly quick rate and needs repair using PED'S which you buy with real money.

Ammunition expended on killing mobs is not recoverable by the loot the mobs drop, although most of the time they dont drop any loot.Therefore you need to buy more ammo with yes....real money.

I joined a society and the people were nice enough but with real money involved there was like an edge to everything,you will not get anything for free....there are no 'hand me downs'.

You can play many games for relitavely low monthly fees but this game allows you to buy as much as you want and if you are easily addicted or indisciplined you could spend far more money then you'd want.

This whole game strikes me as a gigantic elaborate pyramid selling scheme whereby as long as people keep joining the people at the top will make money.It will come crashing down eventually and a lot of people will have lost a lot of money.

Again, I only played a short while but that was enough.I would not recommend you play this game (although casino is a more accurate description)

/salute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweating is a total bore that is true. In spite of that I did that A LOT in the beginning, for I wanted to 'crack the system' without putting real money in. I got a very good start after REAL HEAVY sweating, that is like HOURS, daily, every day, every month. But I had way too much time back then, wouldn't bother to try that now..

All weapons do NOT degrade fast. Repeat: NOT.

Nowadays you get ammo frequently as loot.

You will not get often anything free, thats for sure. For its 'real money game'. Still it happens quite frequently that veteran players give beginners armor sets, low-end faps for free, or you can get healed for free while hunting, or someone comes to help you when you are close to dieing fighting some animal. I do that too sometimes. As it is a 'money game', you cannot expect that to happen very much. It's hard fighting for (economical) survival after all - that is the catch of EU. You NEED to want to fight that kind of fight, otherwise you cannot but hate Entropia. And that is ok.

True is, ppl at the top will be making money, most of us others don't. Especially for beginners it is practically impossible, so Atrebates is right in that newbs pay the bills. But they are not the only ones, also veteran players who want to skill faster, and they are many, use high-powered guns / swords that cost incredible amounts of PEDs, and they hunt A LOT. Three 40.000 ammo hunts /day is nothing extraordinary.

I don't want to belong to either group , thats why I survive. I deposit ONLY when I want to do something different, like take a long minig trip, or have some good fun with bigger robots for example.

But I am not forced to do that. I will not be locked out of EU if I do not pay monthly fees for half a year. Just log in again.

Something bugs me too of course.. the REAL TOP players, who own land areas, who have 10/10 hit ability with high-end gear, who have the best guns out there.. they DO earn money. I know I will NEVER be there. Absolutely NEVER. That is just totally impossible without selling your IRL car, grandma, kids, and apartment.

So it's a very capitalistic game. On the bottom hard work without much rewards, middle class working, getting their bread but never getting rich, and the rich getting more.. now why in the fuck I still play?  LOL

Maybe because of the challenge? As expected, in WoW it took me the 10 days to get to level 25 (of 60! or 70). I will be in top in no time. Equivalent progress in Entropia took me more than a year, and slowing..

There are few things to keep in mind. MindArk plays us, players, against each other. Like a casino, it takes its revenue, in case of EU as decay cost. But what you shoot and mine and pay for auction prices goes back to so-called 'loot-pool', from which the loots are dealed when you for example hunt. So it is always matter of doing things more economically than 50% of other players, and this needs some calculating and thinking.

Like: 1) Use fast enough weapon so that the animal has no time to regenerate before being killed. For same reasons don't try to hunt animals too big for you. 2) Use weapon with which YOU have good hit ability (HA), which for most means either trade terminal weapons, or the limited (L, unrepairable) weapons. 3) Do not hunt, at least not regularly, animals that manage to kill you often (=just wasted ammo for you, either you can't run back to finish it at all, or can but so late that animal has regained a lot of its health). 4) If you can't loot (L) weapons but have to buy them, try always use the weapons with lowest markup price (but don't forget N:o 1).  5) ALWAYS carry also a finishing weapon, with low decay and ammo consumption, and use it when animal has got only few HP left - no overkills. 6) Do not teamhunt too small animals - again risk of overkilling. 7) This is not 3rd person RPG, hunting works best played like FPS, 1st person (at least for me). So take into consideration inevitable lag: often you need to lead a bit when the animal charges. Good aiming is a bit tricky though even if you had 10/10 HA. It just doesn't work as cleanly and coherently as in FPS games out there. Fortunately (for you) you are not alone with this problem (and remember: economically you are playing against other players wh have the same problem). 8) Plan your approach: try to avoid situations where you can be attacked by many animals simultaneously, which often results in your death, or armor/FAP decay.

Originally posted by Mannfreid
then perhapse you should share this knowledge with the rest of the playerbase on the other 2 forums that cant even come close to breaking even, and using an amped opallo for exasaurs, if that isn't economical to you, then i have to say you're lying and don't play the game. try looking at my screen shot. and why dont you acknowledge the fact that what i say is the truth and are well known facts in the community

Funny, I can hunt indefinitely (it seems), getting enough back to keep going. That is, if I don't try too many fancy (and economically risky) tricks, and be content with the sometimes a bit tedius hunting with certain animals with carefully selected gear.  ^^

Yes, every item you can use in some way decays when it is used. Some items decay very fast, some so slow you will not notice it until several weeks, and everything in between. If you look at for example weapons in PE WIkicharts (dedicated to EU), look at the 'decay' column. Decay varies from 0.020 (0.02pecs/shot, next to nothing) to 175pecs/swing (a unique melee wep, thats 1.75PED/swing!):

http://www.pe-wiki.info/Chart.aspx?chart=Weapon

Some handhelds like flowers, or decorations you can put to your apartment if you buy one,  do not decay. Clothes do not decay in combat (but they do when you color/bleach them).  There may be some others I have forgotten.

Your character need not to eat/drink/rest.  After combat tho you often need to 'rest', ie. wait for the very slow auto-healing, if you don't like to use one of the various first-aid-packs/mindforce healing chips.

You can have pets, and they consume quite a lot food. So far there is not much use for pets though, they for example cannot enter combat with you (I assume it'll be implemented sometime in the future, just guesswork). You can only ask them follow you, and do some simple tricks. This commanding give you some skills of which some are useful in other professions too.

I speak for EU a lot here I see, but I agree on that ppl must be warned. In their PR and ads MA is exaggerating the chances of profiting ingame so much that it reminds me of intentional deceit.

Originally posted by WoWplayer65

The problem is, after all these hype with the press, like CP - TI - CND - Shopping Malls, there have been many joining EU who deposit loads of money. They buy skills and wery expensive equipment, hoping for good loot. Many of them don't know good enough how to play and loose big time money...

Thats what I mean. And sure you can burn even more than 100USD in 30min, actually loosing money isn't that difficult thing to do. What makes it stupidity.. well if you hear that investing in Wall Street can make you loads of cash in no time, and you rush to buy expensive bunch of stocks without proper investigation and loose all you put in, what should you call that?

At least one should examine the different possibilities with small enough amounts first, and only gradually start taking bigger, preferably somewhat calculated risks.

That is so BS. One must be a Archmaster of Stupidity skill if one is able to loose 100USD in 30min.

Well yes it's a very hard 'game'. If you just drop in great amount of money, start playing, and think "now I got good start", you are 99.999% sure to loose that all in no time. You need to give it some fairly long time to see how it plays for you. And certainly EU is not for everyone, got to have some will to think/calculate very carefully economy of everything you do, and still there is risk involved.

Yup, there is no adrenaline rush like seeing a green dot on radar when you are in PVP3, especially if you have mined/looted good amount of stuff you propably will loose next minute.

As a fps, UT player specifically I find this mixed fps/rpg/pvp in EU I a bit silly though.

Originally posted by huxflux2004

Strange thing. You get a game technically terrible, that needs 10$ to do anything. Why should I pay for something that looks so bad, without even trying it first. Havent they heard about trials? All games have it. You can play for 10-14 days, see the games potential and then pay. Here? You cant see anything, apart from a technically flawed piece of software. And guess what, you have to pay 10$ to see the rest. Crazy ppl.

1. Pick as starting point Port Atlantis. New Oxford is in Amethera, which is a very hostile continent.

2. LAG is always an issue when there are many avatars around. Gameplay gets much better when you avoid busy spots. P.Atlantis specifically is THE LAGCITY.

3. When you start the game you have absolutely nothing except your colonist clothes. You need to make some money (PEDs they are called ingame). You can: ***  A) try to find fruit (low value), dung (next to nothing value) *** B) sweat animals (collect their lifeforce using special lifeforce technique every colonist possesses when entering EU, then sell it); this is the main activity for beginners, and although can be boring, you socialize while doing that and gain some defensive skills while doing that (and die often) *** C) deposit real money in; with, say 10 USD you can get basic setup (armor, gun, first-aid pack and ammo) and start hunting; not recommended before you have sweated some time, learned the agro range of animals, explored the continent(s) a bit, found some new teleports, etc. *** D) trade; buy cheap, sell high - the most sure way to make money, imo also the most boring *** E) just chat around.

4. Beware of scammers. Some ppl try to upgrade your armor for PEDs (armors cannot be upgraded). Some try to pay you too little for your stuff. Look at the general chat, or prices at auction first.

5. Do not beg. It is widely despised. It often happen some ppl give you stuff free, but better not ask it.

6. Get a mentor. A skilled mentor, who is also online often and willing to help, is invaluable. Watch out for ppl who want you as a disciple just to get their mentor gift later on, but you will never see again. You can kick your mentor within first couple of days if he/she sucks.

7. Be patient. (As actually in a few other mmorpgs,) progress is slow.

8. After you got some hunting gear and besic defensive skills, you can try hunting or crafting. Not recommended in the start, they can be very expensive if you dont know where to go/you are unlucky. ----- 9. Check www.entropiaforum.com/forums for tons of info. It IS heavily moderated, and no talk about other mmorpgs is allowed, but so are many other game specific forums.

Yah but I forgive a lot to EU (well I'm addicted already as is not IQ 200 needed to guess). It's not too easy to maintain couple of continents, tens of kilometers wide where you can move seamlessly from server to another, all the time keeping bank quality security and stuff. I'm sure there will be new 3D engine coming (yes it's needed), and then oblivion will be in oblivion. JK Anyway in a way I feel I'm still in the pioneering stage. Rules change yearly, so those who were brave betatesters now have items worth 10s thousands $ each. Maybe, when those other poor souls :D join in after couple of ears, I can sell some of my much valued stuff then, buy an land area and live IRL with my income virtual. There are couple of ppl I know (not personally) to really do that, get sufficient monthly income just working in f*king virtual pixellage. In which other 3D game there is even a theoretical possibility for that? But really thats not but for 0.01% of participants as anyone can understand. Fortunately we have our community, which, though seemingly greedy (and actually too), can laugh at their bad luck and whatever. The setup where you are running on landscapes filled with various beasts, with skills and weapons that are FAR from omnipotent, yourself without any special wizardly skills except maybe personal tp chip+ some less than magnificent mindforce tricks - that can make every hunting, and especially mining trip a lengthy adventure. That very much feet on soil -feeling make you feel very conscious of your vulnerability, And when you fail that makes good stories to your friends ingame. But lag atm is indeed fucking irritating.

I like being whipped :D

Been in 1 1/2 years now, I can manage with the lag issues, I don't mind bad loot, I cope with looking high-end players zooming by with fancy stuff, I cope with the INSANELY high skill increase curve (it WILL be really bad after some time).

Why? I believe in this concept I guess. And community is really helpful and great.

And actually I'm doing ok myself. So far I have only 4939 in rifle skills :D, my main profession is hunting, but if I pick my targets carefully and consume ammo thoughtfully, I'm ok, even make tiny profits now and then. Nothing I could withdraw thats for sure.

This game is for long time.  Absolutely no point just dropping in for month even or so, you gotta have patience.

And to add: graphics is not top-notch, there are already many much better-looking games out there. But still the extreme variety of the 2 vast continents, especially Eudoria, can stun at times.

To original question:

Yes you can play EU for free. Some ppl have advanced to a very good position in EUniverse without depositing a dime. But they are exceptions.

Generally, prepare for a VERY slow start if you are not planning to deposit. But it IS possible to make progress, even profit. Profiting BIG is not propable though.