** Disregard Spelling Erors :-D (I don't feel like check it in another app) **

I've known about Entropia Universe/Project Entropia for quite some time. I first tried the game back in 2006/7 and never deposited anything, but quickly got tired of Sweat Gathering. Last week I picked it up again, seeing as how they updated the graphics since I last played and I was just looking for something to get in to.

This time however, I deposited money. I first played the game for about a day doing the tutorial missions, gathering sweat, etc. etc. Basically just to get a feel of the game. After about a day of playing, I made a small deposit of $10/USD and bought 96.xx PED. I used this PED to first buy me an airship to get to some of the places around Calypso and Amertha(sp?). I kept it for a while, but I ended up trading it back to the Auction House for a small profit of 2PED I might add  (ofc that's not including fuel... I still think I may have made a profit) to buy mining probes. 

So far, this $10 has kept me afloat for a week and I haven't added up all my stocked up materials, but I think I'm still at around the same amount in the game.

I am a miner, I put the $10 in to mine and that's what I like doing. My combat skills are very low and I spend most of my time dodging them or trying to drown them. I think I've been lucky, honestly. With my Rookie Finder (how you find ore/liquid deposits) I found a spot worth 30PED ($3). From there, I upgraded to a better Finder and on my first run with that I scored a Global (I guess that's what it's called?) worth 50PED ($5). I've found several other 30PED deposits with the Finder F-101 and am thinking about upgrading to the F-102 soon. 

I look at this game as MMO Gambling. Much like any online casino but with more thought, strategy, and research involved.... as well as having skills attached to your account just like any traditional MMO. Every time I press the button to look for deposits, I am essentially paying a little over $0.10 (1PED) to MindArk (the company who runs the game) for the probes I'm using. Sometimes, I find deposits back to back to back and I'm making my money back for the probe drops instantly. Sometimes, I can go through 50PED worth of probes and not hardly find a damn thing. Other times, but rare, I find 1 deposit that is worth more than all the probes I'm carrying on me. 

And you know what? If you look at it like that, as MMO Gambling, it's alot of gd fun! I would have never thought this game would be as much fun as it is. I have played many many MMOs during the past 10 years or so, but this one is pretty impressive. It's exciting to find something worth alot of in game money in a regular MMO, it's fucking amazing to find something worth real money in an MMO! Every time my scanner pops up with a deposit found, I get happy as hell. No matter if I'm finding them back to back to back, or it's just one in a run where I've wasted most of my probes. I get excited and out of all the MMOs I've ever played, I can honestly say that I've never REALLY been excited to find something like that. Even with the little bit of combat I have done, it's actually exciting to kill a mob and see what's inside. In Entropia, there is very little "junk" as there is in most games. There is some, but virtually everything has a purpose and virtually everything has real world value. 

Not only is it about the excitment of finding stuff, but the game itself is a solid skill based game with an AMAZING community. Every time you fire your gun, it costs money. Virtually everything you do in the game costs money. Earlier this morning, I got stuck at an Outpost where I couldn't get out at all. As much as I tried to dodge the mobs surrounding me, I couldn't get out. So, I called the Combat Resue Team (CRT) and those guys were amazing. For free, they came in with about 6 guys and blasted their way out of the massive fairly high level mob spawn to get me to saftey. These guys used their money to get me out of a bad situation completely free of charge... I'm pretty sure they ended up with a small profit from the ordeal because they ended up scoring a global in the process, but initially they didn't know if they would make a profit from it or not, they simply do it to help out fellow Entropians. It's a rare thing to find people like this in games in today's market. But here these guys are, doing this since 2005, helping out their fellow players free of charge. 

Added to those type of people in the game, you know how probably 75% of the time you spend in games in well populated areas with "good communities" or not, you find people raging, cussing, and just generally acting like children? I have YET to see that in Entropia. I've been to some of the most populated cities on Calypso (the main planet) and I have yet to see someone acting childish, trolling, or raging for some unknown reason. I've seen people joking around in somewhat immature ways, but that's fine and most of us do that. 

I honestly think that if more of us old schoolers could get over the fact that ingame money is directly related to real life money, I think more people would play this game. The population is healthy don't get me wrong, with over 3000 people mining per month and hardly anyone seems to be a miner, but I think it could be much larger and could be home to alot of us who've been looking for games over the years. This is a GAME, not a chat program like Second Life. As a matter of fact, the game isn't even really similiar to Second Life at all.... other than the RMT system. SL isn't a game, I played that for awhile just messing around, but it's not a game. Entropia is a game and it's pretty damn fun. You don't have to make the news and put in $300,000 to buy a space station, who cares about that? If you just want to play, it doesn't seem any more expensive than any other MMO out there and you have the potential of hitting the Jackpot and actually being able to buy yourself a nice dinner with that Ore Deposit you found. I don't think you're not going to make a living playing Entropia, unless you put up considerable investments. But you don't need to make a living to have fun playing the game. 

Good post! You pretty much summed up why I like the game so much :P

If you ever need help or have a question, feel free to look me up in the player register and add me to your friendlist.

(Narfi Hungry Willem)

Ive been playing for 4 years now, this was my first mmo, and the lack of an RCE makes every other option out there seem pale and meaningless to me. Im glad I found it first :P

Good Luck and have fun, I hope you has as much fun and last as long as i have. (I'm still young compared to some players)

narfi

Thanks man. 

Yeah, I was reading the other thread here which was full of other people not liking the game for this reason or that and I could understand that aprehention(sp?) at thinking it's sort of scammy as a game, but MindArk seems to be a great company and the game itself is solid.

I mean, it did feel scammy when I tried in 2006, but here it is 5yrs later and 8yrs after the game was released.......... but where is the drama? Where are the news articles about MindArk running off with people's money? There hasn't been much, which is rare in a game with any sort of RMT. Second Life has drama DAILY with their devs and sketchy business practices, EVE online has been full of them since 2003. But in Entropia, you don't see that. The only thing I've really found that was semi-serious was last year when one of the players became a dev, but kept playing. 

If ppl can get passed the Real Cash Economy, which really isn't nearly as bad as most probably think, then I'm sure more would like it around here. When I deposited my money, I thought of it as if I was buying a game. I did the free trial, then basically purchased the game to see what it was really like. 

A very good post indeed and I fully agree with Narfi, that the points you mentioned are the reason that I have been playing for more then 7 years (sure a bit less these days). Like all MMO's this one also has some rotten apples and most old timers of the game remember a few of them I guess, but because of the RCE most players are mature and all the 13 years old kids quit the game pretty fast because it is a LOT harder to play the WoW and they find out they will not be rich in a few weeks in this game or be uber  in a month. This keeps the community very mature and people are not affraid to ask questions or help people out. Also the new planets make it a game for even more people, because there are a few different themes to choose from all in the same game, you can even travel from one planet to the other to play in a different invirement with the same avatar. And with more planets on their way for Q1 2012 the game will be growing fast and will become more exciting.

I lost my ass.

I was going probe by probe.

I was making a run with my last 4 probe drops and didn't find anything but a small....... (WHICH I COULDN'T GET!)

And then

My first HoF!

A BIG ONE TOO!

Check the finder. F-101 unamped. I couldn't afford anything else. 

(I used Tinypic.com to edit that..... so sorry for the splotches)

I tried hard to get into this game since basically I like its concept. I'm really no graphic adict and don't mind EU's somewhat primitive graphics (currently playing AC and enjoying a lot!). But from a game with such low graphic qualities I expect a bit more stability. I'v got several hard crashes with EU until finally I gave up. I have a pretty recent system btw that's able to play AoC fluidly with most features rised to 100%. In general my system runs pretty stable.

Originally posted by picommander

I tried hard to get into this game since basically I like its concept. I'm really no graphic adict and don't mind EU's somewhat primitive graphics (currently playing AC and enjoying a lot!). But from a game with such low graphic qualities I expect a bit more stability. I'v got several hard crashes with EU until finally I gave up. I have a pretty recent system btw that's able to play AoC fluidly with most features rised to 100%. In general my system runs pretty stable.

They had a graphic update last year. It's running Crytek2 engine and the graphics are very very nice. I can't even run them at max. I'd say it's up there as a game with one of the best graphics of any MMO. 

Originally posted by Donev

Originally posted by picommander

I'v got several hard crashes with EU until finally I gave up.

They had a graphic update last year. It's running Crytek2 engine and the graphics are very very nice. I can't even run them at max. I'd say it's up there as a game with one of the best graphics of any MMO. 

When was that last year? Must be late in 2011 after my short visit then...

Originally posted by picommander

Originally posted by Donev

Originally posted by picommander

I'v got several hard crashes with EU until finally I gave up.

They had a graphic update last year. It's running Crytek2 engine and the graphics are very very nice. I can't even run them at max. I'd say it's up there as a game with one of the best graphics of any MMO. 

When was that last year? Must be late in 2011 after my short visit then...

If you think the graphics are bad, you must not like any MMO graphics. Being picky is one thing. Being overly picky is another. Either way, no reason to destroy me thread over it. 

I've played Entropia Universe (now Planet Calypso if I remember?), it's a fine game but I didn't play for a very long time. I've always been reluctant to spend money in this game in particular considering every purchase and sales is based on real-life money (by that I mean that even if you are using PEDs, at the end of the road it's still real $).

I've purchase items in F2P games before, but usually permanents stuff that I don't need to worry about it disappearing or running out, which is the issue I have with Entropia. I've focused mostly on Combat at first, and monsters don't seem to drop items all that often, so seeing my ammunition reserve continoustly drop and having to worry about whether or not I'll be able to buy enough again afterwards or if I'll have to go back to farming sweat has been my major concern so in the end I just stopped playing.

I still find myself checking Entropia Universe once or twice a year without accomplishing much. Maybe someday I'll just invest a small amount of money ($10-20) and see where it goes, but not now.

Originally posted by Donev

I lost my ass.

I was going probe by probe.

I was making a run with my last 4 probe drops and didn't find anything but a small....... (WHICH I COULDN'T GET!)

And then

My first HoF!

A BIG ONE TOO!

Check the finder. F-101 unamped. I couldn't afford anything else. 

(I used Tinypic.com to edit that..... so sorry for the splotches)

Huge Congrats ;)

Hope you spend it wisely :P

narfi

Originally posted by Vetarnias
Amazing how this discussion of a "fascinating game" seems entirely about making money off it, and the OP even used the word "gambling".... I've been reading about it, and to me, it sounds like it's exactly the same shape as what the Egyptians were building at Giza, and I'm getting a really bad vibe from it.

You're not going to make money off the game. People do and I think one of the people I regularly talk to in the game makes a living off it, but you're not going to. Nobody should go into the game under that presumption. 

The Real Cash Economy isn't as scary as you might think. It works much like most other games and you can play on a normal monthly MMO Subscription payment. If you get lucky, I'm sure you can play for free and if you're consistently lucky, you might be able to make a couple bucks off it. 

Do I have mining runs where I leave with 60PED ($6) worth of Probes and come back with 20 PED worth of ore? Yup. Quite frequently actually. Do I have runs where I leave with 20PED worth of probes and come back with 120PED of ore? Yup, did that last night. That feels so much worse and so much better than any other game I've ever played. 

But underneath all of that, it's a deep sandbox game that is very reminiscent(sp?) of SWG Pre-NGE. I went into space recently and it's even a fully fleshed out 3D environment. I bet combat up there is fun as hell. 

Edited

Streaming my first trip to space. I hope I don't die. I heading to planet arkadia.

I read that skills in the end doesn't matter much or at all (mining and crafting in particular), is this true? (one of the guides in calypso forum)

also I tried searching for skills guide that show you what every skill in the game does exactly and how much does it enhance your avatar but I couldn't find one, I don't mind a long character progressing but skills hardly matters really turned me off, and I could notice it somehow, when I was sweating mobs, I got 300~ evasion points and still evade as much as I did when I started against the same puny mobs (loleyeballing, but still), also does skills have cap? 10k points?
I have now 500 points in sweat gathering but the odds on operating the tool (chance on sucking..)and the chance to get higher quantity of sweats in each attempt still exactly the same...plus concentration skill does nothing (unless the interrupt rate on sweating is always 100%?)

I really wants to get into this game, but If my money and time investments in skills eventually would hardly matters, then whats the point?
please correct me if I'm wrong, I absolutely adore this type of skill progressing system, but I'm afraid it might not be designed to benefit me in the end, skilling up in order to "unlock" better equipments is not what I'm looking for, increasing the odd of successful mining,crafting,hunting,sweating,etc results is, which what I'm trying to find out.

Skills matter, but not in a way that is obvious to some. I will try to explain how it works.

There are two types of tools and weapons in the game. Old School Non SIB, and the newer (L) SIB.

For the old school tools and weapons skills matter ALOT. They can not be used to max effeciency untill level 100 so each bit of skill you gain makes you better with that tool or weapon.

For SIB tools and weapons. (Usually Limited(L) )

I will use the Opalo Laser Rifle as an example.

Its SIB range is from 0-5 which means that with a Profession level of 0 you can start using it and will reach max effeciency at level 5.

There is no difference in effeciency between someone at lvl 5 and someone at lvl 100 using an opalo.

There is a huge range of weapons though which you can work your way up to through the SIB ladder, and for this skill gains are very important.

The difference between the lvl 5 player and the lvl 50 player is huge though, even the difference between a lvl 5 and a lvl 15 player is big because it allows the lvl 15 player to use much larger weapons or tools.

At around lvl 15-30ish a player has enough combat skills to be able to team most mobs in the game.

At around lvl 40-50 a player has enough combat skills that with the right combo of armor/weapons and a healer they can at least consider the lower maturities of every mob in the game, and can with proper planning and orginization be competitive in events.

hopefully that helps explain the lvls some, feel free to ask me if you need anything explained better,

narfi

thanks for the answer, I kinda know about the skills and it's correlation with equipments, as in how it allow better use of your current gears and unlocking better gear in the futures with higher skill, just like you described, but I was more concerned about some skills like sweat gathering, evade, courage, concentration..etc how they work? and does they or the other skills become beneficial by themselves without armor/weapon/tools equipped?

I did some research on sweat gathering skill and asked around in game, turns out the skill itself is useless, the sweat gathered from mobs are fixed between 1-4 and cannot increase, it's the other skills that comes while sweat gathering like evade that is beneficial to my avatar, also concentration skill does stop mobs from interrupting me its just I'm still low on it.

Originally posted by Flanteus

thanks for the answer, I kinda know about the skills and it's correlation with equipments, as in how it allow better use of your current gears and unlocking better gear in the futures with higher skill, just like you described, but I was more concerned about some skills like sweat gathering, evade, courage, concentration..etc how they work? and does they or the other skills become beneficial by themselves without armor/weapon/tools equipped?

I did some research on sweat gathering skill and asked around in game, turns out the skill itself is useless, the sweat gathered from mobs are fixed between 1-4 and cannot increase, it's the other skills that comes while sweat gathering like evade that is beneficial to my avatar, also concentration skill does stop mobs from interrupting me its just I'm still low on it.

The sweat gathering skills is a throwback from before i started playing almost 4yrs ago. In the early years when the game was called "Project Entropia" there was a cap on how much sweat you could gather which was measured with the sweat gathering skill. Basicly once you reached a certain skill level in sweating, you could no longer gather sweat and had to either deposit or find other ways to make money in the game.

There isnt a cap any more, but the skill is still there, it is mostly used as a way of measuring how much time an avatar has spent sweating, and there are some amazingly high lvl sweat gatherers in the game.

The other skills are very valuable just as you mentioned,

Evade -  is the main skill that contributes to the Evader profession. The higher your Evader Profession level, the more mobs will miss you when they attack. The higher the lvl of the mob, the higher your evader profession level needs to be before you can notice a difference in their missed hits.

For instance you may notice that the puny mobs start missing you sometimes after a few days, but if you were to go to Neas where the Ambumalax are they would hit you every time still.

Courage - contributes to alot of the Combat Hit professions and is a main contributer to HP gains. Courage is a very valuable skill if you want to become a hunter, every HP you can squeeze our of your skill gains is hugely beneficial once you start hunting and taking hits from the mobs while money is on the line.

Concentration -  contributes to several of the Mindforce professions. Mindforce is Entropias 'scientific' version of magic. It will help you with different mindforce activities such as personal Teleportation Chips, Attack Chips, Heal Chips, etc...

Before the update 2years ago to the new graphics engine, Sweating was done without a tool, it was done with a 'magical' dance with drums and chanting, I think that the concentration skill gains are a throw back from these times.

Sweat is mostly used for mindforce activities, so that may be why concentration is used as well.

Sweating for a few days or a week when you start is a great way to get some of those combat skills before you start hunting, but the amount you can sell sweat for isnt worth your time unless you really enjoy the challenge of being able to make something from absolutely nothing.

I started that way. The first 6 months i played without putting a cent into the game, and the challange and motivation to make it on my own was a ton of fun. It is certainly possible, but it is also a LOT of work and research.

I would be interested in what you are looking at for a monthly budget, as well as what your goals and plans are in the game. I could try and give you some pointers if you wanted in how to get started wisely.

narfi

Originally posted by narfi
 

Sweating for a few days or a week when you start is a great way to get some of those combat skills before you start hunting, but the amount you can sell sweat for isnt worth your time unless you really enjoy the challenge of being able to make something from absolutely nothing.

I started that way. The first 6 months i played without putting a cent into the game, and the challange and motivation to make it on my own was a ton of fun. It is certainly possible, but it is also a LOT of work and research.

Did you really nothing else than sweating during these first 6 month? If so, wasn't that mindbogginly boring?

Did you play solo during these first 6 month? If not, would you say it's possible (playing solo w/o deposit anything)?

Would you say it's still possible these days or do game mechanic changes prevent from these kind of playing the game?

I did lots of things during those first 6 months.

About 1/4 to 1/2 of my time was spent sweating and chatting, I would do this during the times where I couldnt fully concentrate on the game.

About 1/4 to 1/2 of my time was spent mining, This was my main target activity during this time and everything I did was geared towards funding or planning for my next mining run.

About 1/4 of my time was spent doing society team hunts and/or TP runs and mentoring new players. (its so easy to think we know everything after just a couple of weeks :P )

I did do a few beacon runs during this time, which is an instancced team event which provided alot of excitement and nerve wracking game play. (If you died during a beacon mission you revived back on the planet, and couldnt finish the mission with your team who usually needed everyone involved to loot the boxes at the end)

I included swunting (sweating an animal dry then killing it either solo or in a team) in my sweat time above, but really it was a majority of my sweating time so maybe I should have listed it seperatly.

Things have changed alot since I started playing, and while you would not be able to retrace the exact steps I took during those 6 months, there are new advantages to new players now to replace some that have been removed.

To play this game non-depo you have to understand that It is not ment to be played that way, and that you are presenting yourself with the ultimate chalange of 'beating' not only the game, but all of the other payers involved as well.

Create for yourself a budget of your time, and of your ingame resources, and be dicipliined enough to stick with your plan during the good times as well as the bad. Because it involves real money and is so chalenging, this game brings out the best and the worst in our emotions, and once those emotions are triggered either high or low, we tend to make mistakes. Understand that, and avoid it.

To start now non-depo with the intent of playing long term and building your character from the ground up soley on what you have earned ingame, I would start this way:

Sweat non stop for 1-2 weeks. This is booring as heck and will drive you insane, but you need a balance on your ped card to consider any intelegent game play.

1-2 weeks is a long time to chat with people and find out about the game. You will be given all sorts of advice, most of it will be bad. (not that they intend to misslead you, just that you will be talking with other new players who have created their own flawed theories)

During this time it would be good to run or hitch a ride to the teleports at Limnidian District and Neas Place, these are common group sweating grounds where you can meet other new players and sweat in groups. (its more effecient to sweat in a group so that you dont get interuped as much)

You will also need to get the teleport at Twin Peaks during this time. Twin Peaks is the main trading hub on Calypso. (I am basing this on you being on Calypso, if you are on another planet, I can set you up with startig instructions for them as well)

After your 1-2 weeks you should have some ped from sweat sales. You will want to have 20+ ped on  your card.

Now is when your game play really begins.

Buy 4x Rookie Finders from the Trade Terminal as well as the Genesis Excavator and the Refiner tool, then buy 10ped worth of probes.

Now you are ready to start mining.

Set yoru finder to search for ores only. (not enmatter or treasure)

You will go 110 meters (hit P on your keybard and it will show your coordinates in chat, get a feel for how far 110 meters are because this will be your mining life) drop a probe with your rookie finder and run another 110 meters and drop again. (finder range is 55m, so 110 meters will prevent you from covering a search area twice and wasting probes)

When you get a claim drill it up with your excivator and keep going like this untill all 10ped of probes are used up and yoru 4 finders are broken.

Refine all of the ores you found with your refiner, and then go to twin peaks and sell them to a trader for as much markup as you can. (ask the different traders their what prices they offer for what you have)

If you walk while mining, and stay in 3rd person, you can sometimems find precious stones or fruit on the ground. Pick them up and sell them as well.

For the first month or so budget your time so that you spend 1/2 of your time sweating, and 1/2 of your time mining. Even when mining is going good, and even when its going bad, stick with your routine.

Get a map of the planet with all of the teleports on it. Use your mining runs as an excuse to explore and find all of the teleports.

Track what areas you find different kinds of ores, and mark down where you found ores with good markup. (just the area, exact cords dont matter) and once you have got all of the teleports added to your map, then you will start your serious mining carrier.

Set up a rotation for your mining spots with 2-5 spots you go to which have all of the best markup ores. 100 drops(10ped) should last you 1-2 hours, so if you do this once a day then you can set up a system where you go to each spot on a certain day etc... in your rotation leave 1 day for exploring new areas for mining.

You will gain skills and experience and learn  how the system works doing this. The 1/2 time you are sweating + any of the precious stones and fruit you find on the ground will cover any of the losses you get mining and you will slowly start to build up your ped card.

This is just how you start non-depo, if you choose to be a hunter later that is fine, but you will need to build up your ped card first and your faith in the system. Mining is the way to do this combined with sweating and stone gathering.

If you have any questions feel free to ask, or add me as your mentor though the ingame system and chat with me there on how to do things. (ingame name and on the mentor register = Narfi Hungry Willem)

good luck and have fun,

narfi