An Avatar's Reputation

Two threads on the Planet Calypso Forum got me to thinking today.

My Ava is best known for?
The opening post asks what you think people best know your avatar for.

Name that Asteroid and win 5000 peds!!!
John Foma Kalun purchased the bulk of the Asteroid formally known as Club NEVERDIE for 3,350,000PED (335 thousand USD) and needed to rename it since NEVERDIE was no longer the owner. He started a competition offering 5,000ped (500 usd) to anyone who would come up with the name he would use.  I would have thought this was a generous offer, as well as great advertising and PR for his new investment.  But things went horrably wrong when he named a winner who was not entered in the competition, and the thread has turned into a huge fiasco with all sorts of accusations and bad PR.

Although I am a fairly low level player (in the big scheme of things) I now own a shopping booth and would like to become a business man in this Universe even if it is just on a small scale.  I need to look at how people before me  have succeeded and failed. I need to learn from them as well as create my own opportunities.

This is a Real Cash Economy and so people's pocketbooks are at stake, and because of this emotions can run very high.  This magnifies anything we do in the eyes of others to a point it could become stressful if you allowed it.

Being an A-hole in this game isn't just annoying to people, it actually costs them money which makes it even worse.  If you mob train someone they don't just die, they take lots of extra decay costs as well as potentially loosing the ped worth of ammo into a 1/2 killed animal.  If you "kill steal" from someone by killing an animal that someone else has already started shooting, you not only get a cheaper kill for yourself, but you are in essence stealing ped from them since they had already put ammo into the animal.

Those are some of the more obvious and blatant things that can bring you a bad reputation. But there are others as well, especially in business.  A good example would be when Shoti was buying Proteron DNA and pissed off a bunch of people by the way he did business. Since then Skippy and Star were able to finish another set of dna and put it on their land area in competition with Shoti. Shoti has had lots of times with 0% taxes as well as high prize value events trying to get interest back in his land. There was a lot of ped invested there and pad PR seems to be causing issues with the profits.

There are lots of well known players and or business men/women in this game that have done well for themselves.  How have they done it?

Mercury
Famous for being Uber and for having deposited little or nothing into the game to achieve what he has. He doesn't seem to post much on the forums, but does run constant sales threads as well as other random logs from time to time. He frequently records his activities and streams them live for people to watch.
His best advertising: A constant stream of globals and a reputation for being one of the top "Ubers"
His worst PR: A short temper and random posts of rage in the past. (those were my first impression of him when i started playing 3 years ago, I haven't seen any of that lately and seems he is much more professional now)

NEVERDIE
Famous for spending 100 thousand usd for the original purchase of the Asteroid and then actually making a profit from it in such a short time.  He was always a huge advocate for Entropia and last year started a Development Studio and became a Planet Partner with Rocktropia as well as a contract for building Next Island.  The king of name branding, he makes sure that everyone knows the name NEVERDIE. He thrives for the limelight and loves the cameras even if its controversial.
His best Advertising: A hardcore belief in the game and high energy to promote it everywhere he goes.
His worst PR: He is just too dang full of himself.

Deathifier
Famous for the big purchase of Treasure Island and well known for being one of the most involved land owners in the game. If he makes an investment you know it will be profitable.  His most recent big investment appears to be in Arkadia and we all have high hopes for it.
His best Advertising: Actions speak louder than words, his land areas are maintained in a way that draw people in.
His worst PR: Not a very big forum presence. (cant say much bad about him)

Fishface
A player and adviser to new people. When I first started playing there was an animal at sweat camp that said "Fishface is a decent fellow"  He has a show on Atlas Haven Radio and is known by everyone new and old alike.
His best Advertising: A slogan people remember and always being avaliable where the crowds are.
His worst PR: That stupid mask after vu10. (come on that was lame)

Mindstar9
Well known for her radio station and storytelling, she has done alot of news reporting since before I was around.
Her best Advertising: Always around on the forums and great detail into news and posts.
Her worst PR: Too passionate to stop when there is controversy.

I think that peoples greatest strengths can also be their greatest weaknesses. The trick is to figure out how to maximize it in the strength and minimize it in the weakness.

I am not claiming to be as important or that I will ever reach the pinnacles that these people have, but they give me reference for what I want to do.

How can I apply this to myself? What should I do that I am not yet, or what should I change that I am currently doing?
I don't know, but its something that I feel needs considering.

Cinetropia & AxeMurderer

I now have feeds to three different blogs besides my own on the right column of this page.

Sorven Shrang Shadowsoul - An ongoing work of fan fiction that I have already told you about.

Cinetropia - A blog run by the Death Lords society and dedicated to the Entropia Universe. They have some good articles on starting out as a new player. They are also working on creating some videos.
They are currently on part IV of a series called "A Newb's Eye View"

AxeMurderer's Blog - AxeMurderer is a Store owner at the Emerald Lakes Mall. I met with him for buisness to see if he would be interested in selling Rocktropia weapons on Calypso and found out that he had a blog which I have started reading. (haven't had time for all the posts yet) He is keeping a pretty detailed log of his hunts and activities, so once I am caught up, I think I will enjoy watching his progress.  He also seems to be pretty caught up on the news around the Universe and has some nice pictures of weapons from Arkadia. (I'm really liking the new longblade)

For anyone looking for B.A.M.F zk5(L) shotguns and Cryogenics II(L) chips I would recommend looking in his store at Emerald Lakes.

Blogs are interesting in that they give you a chance to look at something through someone else's eyes with their perspective.

There is so much to the Universe that one person cant experience it all for them self. There are lots of times when I think about what I would do in a certain situation, but because of the choices I have made and where I am in the game, I wont have the opportunity to experience those situations.  Reading these blogs is a way for me to experience them anyways, which I think is kind of cool.

Good luck, and have fun reading :)

narfi

A Fickle Deity (where is Lootius?)

The Good:
I returned to Rocktropia, and got lots of first time blueprint discoveries.
I crafted the new blueprint and got lots of first time dragon armor plate discoveries.
I got a 707ped HOF (hall of fame) crafting some of the dragon plates.

The Bad:
The day after all the excitement I started hunting again to get more dragon parts that I needed.
Morrison Dragons,
Lunch run = about 250ped loss
Evening run before bed = about 500ped loss
Both runs were so bad I didn't even try to calculate in armor/fap decay.

I got enough Doors Hides to do another small run on Morrison Dragon plates and finished off a complete set.
It was also a bad run and sucked up about 200ped more than the tt value of what I put into them.

Lunch break today I started hunting Joplin Dragons since I need more claws to finish the set of Joplin Plates.  I think these may be some of the more valuable ones since they would be good for Crystal Palace hunters, as well as several of the Calypso acid mobs. (Proteron, Leviathan, TI mobs)

When down and glum over bad losses I like to think back and see if there is anything I could have done to prevent it from happening, and in turn do what I can to prevent it in the future.
I knew there was a VU last night, and I know that usually my returns are really bad the several hours before servers go down for a VU. So really I shouldn't have been hunting, and it was my own fault for not following my own rules. I was just excited about being able to hunt a dragon that I hadn't normally been able to hunt before. (Polaris + Lemmy Dragon Plates = 80 cut/stb protection) and I needed more hides to make plates with.

Looking back and then forward, I will try and not hunt/mine/craft right before a VU again. I will also try to keep hunting that requires me to hire a medic to a minimum, its just not economical when you need someone constantly healing you for a couple hours straight. (at least at my level)

How to price a new item: Part II (my hunch was right)

A huge part of the draw of this game is that the highs are high and the lows are low.  When you follow what your avatar is doing enough you become somewhat emotionally attached to its successes and failures.

In my last post I was disappointed that I had been unable to purchase the newly discovered Rudolf Dragon Plate blueprint.
Last night I finished my errands on Calypso and purchased a bunch of crafting supplies that I brought back to Rocktropia with me.  I started clicking armor blueprints hoping that I would be able to get a Rudolf Plate print for myself.
I was successful ;) and now I am pretty excited. I got not only two rudolf plate prints for myself but discovered a couple of new dragon plate prints as well.  My hunch paid off and I was able to loot what I wanted much cheaper than I had originally offered to purchase the one print for.

The next problem lays with my relative inexperience with crafting. I am/was only a lvl 5 armor crafter. The minimum skill recommended for the new dragon plate blueprints is level 5, but for best chance of success its recommended to have about 5 levels above recommended.  So this morning I made my first big (for me) skill purchase and bought 500ped (counting mu) of engineering skills. I have used a couple of skill chips before, but just small ones from friends leaving the game, nothing I have spent so much on.  This brought me up to almost lvl 9 armor manufacture which I decided was good enough for what I needed.

For an interesting side story on what a healthy diet of low-fat  high-skill chips can do for your avatar, check out this thread.

I only had time to click some of the Pop Dragon Plates this morning before work, but had what I considered to be good success with them.
You may check out my Discovery  and Price check threads if your interested.

I have some more new prints to try out next time I log in, hopefully they are as successful as the Pop one was :)

narfi

How to price a new item (or am I an Idiot?)

I logged on on Calyspo this morning to start placing stuff in auction. (the boring, stressful, time consuming part of the trader/adventurer lifestyle I have adapted)
Chatted with some society mates, and started waking up when I saw a new discovery in the global chat.
Rudolf Dragon Plate MK1 Blueprint (L)

WOW, I have been wanting that print for a month, I knew it would come eventually, but thought it wouldn't happen until the next update.  During the update when blueprints were first found on Rocktropia I cycled thousands of PED to loot the prints that I got, some of which were new Discoveries, and some of which got even more new Discoveries when clicked by me, or by another crafter with more skills that I had click them for me.  I don't know if this Rudolf Plate bp just hadn't been discovered from that VU, or if it was a hidden addition from the apparently useless VU this week.  Either way it dropped, and I want it.

I have been camping Rudolf Dragons for a while now and have been almost the only person hunting them.
I know from the other Dragon Plate bps that I have roughly what the ingredients required will be, and have collected over 100 of the hides which is the more difficult to obtain part needed. (I am pretty sure that no one hunter has collected half that number yet)

Being stuck on Calyspo and not having the lucky crafter who discovered the print on my Friend List, I quickly started PMing people who might know him, or that would be around the likely spots where he was probably crafting when he discovered it.  It was a good 10 minutes of chaos trying to get connected with him via other people.

This is where the hard part comes in, I want the print but I also want the best for him and understand that he has something new and unique that would likely sell for more than its profit value when used.  How much should I offer, and how should he respond?

I offered him a price of around double what the existing dragon plate blueprints sell for, and he discussed it with his society leader. (very smart for anyone to do, I wouldn't recommend anyone blindly selling something new without getting advice from more experienced players.)

They talked about it amongst themselves, presumably in soc chat or pm and then asked me if I would be willing to sell them the required resources to click the print.  I told them that I wasn't interested because I believe that the print will drop again, and so that I would like to click it myself when I get one.  They talked some more and decided that they would try and gather the resources needed themselves and craft it. I told them that if they changed their minds to please let me know what price they would like to sell it for. I am still kind of hoping that he will sell it to me even though its not likely.

I think this was probably a good choice for them even though I felt that my offer was fair. It will give them the opportunity for a new discovery when they have their first success, and they will then get to set the price for the new plates.  Very exciting times indeed.

Reflecting back its hard to know if I should have done anything differently, or if I greatly miss-judged the value of the print.  Maybe it truly will be a unique and rare print and I just screwed myself out of every using the hides I've spent a month or more collecting.

It is my goal to be a business man in this game even though I have limited resources.  It is times like this though that the adrenaline and doubt push you to wonder if you should pay 4x what your gut tells you, or to back off and stick with your initial feelings.

GL to the Discoverer :)

narfi