VU11.7.1 Hype or Fail?

This VU brought a lot of controversy to Rocktropia, and to all of the major Entropia related forums.  I had been looking forward to this VU as it was announced to be the release of new characters (more mobs,) missions, and more blueprints.  We got all of that and more.

The new content.
New Characters: Not only were there lots of new mobs but also the local flavor of characters who are the equivalent of mission brokers.  New mobs that I have seen included different names of guys around the same areas as the vixens and seem to be the male equivalents of the vixens. The most humerus one being the "Forum Troll" which is obviously a stab at the people who have been unchecked in their attacks on Neverdie, NDS, and the choices they have made for their planet.  Basing mobs on current in game (or game surrounding forums) is kind of a cool idea in my opinion. There are also sharks around the bamf land areas and possibly more, I haven't fully explored it yet.  There was also a special maturity of alot of the mobs named Legends or Kings which were super high hp and low dmg versions of the normal mobs. Apparently once killed the Legends didn't re-spawn so whoever found them first got to kill them.  The one dragon was reported to have had a million hp which is pretty crazy.

The Missions: Seem to have been pretty well laid out, and although I haven't had time to do all of them have really liked the story line and set up with them so far.  Interesting to note is that one of the first missions rewards you with a cell phone which is required to use any of the teleports on Rocktropia.  This really made City of Dreams a bottle neck of people arriving, and although I think it is a fun and good idea, it really pissed off a lot of "ubers" who came up to hunt and didn't want to mess around with "noob" missions.

New Blueprints: Really a disappointment so far for me personally. The first day of the VU no one looted any Rocktropia Records which were needed to even click the new print received in the mission.  I was told that a couple of mobs were dropping them and  have tried hunting them but received none in loot so far.  Hopefully they will become more common and I am waiting for that before I hunt or purchase them to craft. (well ill probably still hunt :P )

The Controversy:
Old school crafted scanners, fap-90s and a LOT of low level armor including the rare pieces needed to finish a lot of the low level unfinished sets started dropping with the new VU.

As soon as the ubers from Calypso found out about it, they showed up in force.  City of Dreams was crazy that day, so many people my computer was having trouble keeping up. (I really need to get a new one)

The armor and faps don't seem to have upset as many people, but the scanners have really caused a riot.
The ES500 scanners were selling for around 7kped a few weeks ago, last I checked auction they were around 1k and dropping fast.  Obviously this will upset people who have invested in them before.
From what I understand though they have gotten upset at the wrong people. They blame Neverdie for putting the scanners in the loot to "screw over" the Calypso investors.  It has been stated time and time again though that Neverdie Studios is only the graphics studio and that they can suggest stats for new items to Mind Ark, but that Mind Ark has the final word on everything as well as loot balancing.  Obviously this was an issue with loot balancing, so I really don't understand why people are angry with ND or Rocktropia when similar things have happened on Calypso in the past.

The other item people were upset about was the JUELZ ultra gun that was looted with very high damage per second and very low skill requirements. (profession lvl 3 required to use)

Again I don't really understand why they are upset when there are similar guns on Calypso which haven't affected the economy at all. The anti-material rifles on calypso are one example of such guns already in existence.  The truth of the matter is that MA wouldn't let guns like that drop frequently enough to affect anything. It turns out that the gun was looted from a special maturity of Mob that doesn't re-spawn once killed.  So basically right now we have a couple of those limited(L) guns in the game, and people on the Calypso Forum are acting like they are the end of hunting as we know it. Honestly though, it appears that the guns would last less than an hour of hunting, and with the markup they will demand would be very unpractical to hunt with.  They will be a novelty or PK only weapon that someone will overpay for because of its stats. Grats to the looters I say.

It will be interesting to see how many people will stick around after the rush. I know of several people I have talked to that have mentioned they might stick around a while because the planet was nicer than they expected. 

When it gets quiet I will do the missions and enjoy them. Until then I am mining and crafting Dragon Plates for our visitors.

Good Luck Everyone, and Have Fun

narfi

NEVERDIE Banished to Prison

Thanks to misao at EntropiaPlanets.com for finding this news blurb.
Link to misao's thread.
Link to the original news site.
The reference to prison seems to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek but what really interested me was the announcement  of ROCKtropia 2.0 in march, which sounds like will include a lot more content.
This is especially exciting considering that we got so much new content just this morning.

Here is the info they had

"Hollywood, CA - February 22, 2011– Cyber-Celebrity avatar Jon“NEVERDIE” Jacobs has become the first virtual political prisoner and is now locked up in“No Way Out” a maximum security PVP prison in the virtual world ROCKtropia

Virtual world millionaire NEVERDIE, who recently set a new world record after making a Real life profit of over $500k from the sale of a virtual asteroid, was banned from playing in ROCKtropia after a backlash from the game community was ignited by his high profile activities and dual Role of Gamer and Developer
In what some people described as an international online virtual witch hunt, NEVERDIE, his real life family and staff were all penalized in an attempt to stem fears of possible virtual insider trading..
NEVERDIE commented“ There really hasn't been a situation like this before in Video Game History where a gamer has crossed over to become a developer and because of the sensitivity of a Multi-Billion dollar Virtual goods Economy, must stop being a gamer. Of course I understand everyone's concerns, but I simply can't quit and waste my time building another avatar in a lesser MMO. I have spent 10 years championing Virtual Culture, ROCKtropia is the Future of Virtual Worlds, I must keep my Avatar alive, even if it means I have to Play inside a Virtual Prison, that's still game enough for me and who knows I may just find a way to escape!”
ROCKtropia is a cutting Edge virtual world that utilizes Stunning Cryengine2 Graphics and exists within Entropia Universe, the leading Real cash Economic, social and gaming platform.
ROCKtropia's central theme is music and Pop Culture featuring destinations for Major Artists, Bands and Music Companies. ROCktropia 2.0 is set for launch April 12th 2011.
ROCKtropia 2.0 will add new functionality to the virtual World including Quests, mini games, Expanded Shopping, Residential Areas, a Prison, Nightclubs, Tutorials, New Characters, Wildlife and Virtual Treasures branded by Top Artists.
NEVERDIE Studios will exhibit at Screenburn at SXSW in Austin Texas March 11-13th to provide a Sneak preview of ROCKtropia 2.0 to the Press and Public and also to make a Major announcement."

I wonder If the "prison" thing will be some part of the new content?  I know that Island Girl has been immortalized as a reviver/healer on Next Island.  Maybe NEVERDIE will become part of the underground music scene in a prison on Rocktropia?

An Entropian Tragady

A few months ago I created a short film for a video competition at neverdie.com
New Video Competition--- EPIC DEATH
Here is my video, but make sure you check out the thread to see all the entries.

How to become a Pro on your first day for $200 (active for $300)

I have been a volunteer member of the staff at EntropiaPlanets.com for a while now. I haven't really done much on the forum besides give my input on articles before they are released. The main thing I have done is written a few articles for their magazine EntropiaTimes.

Today was my first front page article on their forum though which may not seem like much, but is pretty cool for me.

How to become a Pro on your first day for $200 (active for $300)

The process was kind of fun. I came up with the idea a couple days ago and did a little research and typed it up.  Then I posted it in the staff section on the forum and the other writers gave feed back on corrections that it needed.  I made some changes and tried doing some formatting which turned out pretty bad.  Lykke who is one of the owners of the forum fixed the formatting for me and made a banner for the beginning which made it look a lot more professional.  In the end it turned out pretty nicely (I think,) and now I am less intimidated by the thought of doing other articles.

Here is a re-post of the article.

How To Become A Pro On Your First Day for $200
(active for $300)

Disclaimer:This is not how to be UBER, but this will allow you to play at a level which most people in the game are comfortable with on a long term basis which will earn you the skills needed to become the UBER of your dreams if you are willing to put in the time and money.

Cost
~1000ped for skills + ~1000ped for gear (only investment gear, this doesn't include guns or ammo)

Goal
Skills and gear to use the Korss H400(L) handgun to its max efficiency which will let you hunt drones, atrox, feffoids, armax, etc. on Calypso. Werewolves, Motorhead Security, High level Vampires and Vixens, mid level Zombies on Rocktropia as well as a LOT of the mobs on Next Island including some drakes.

Skills needed (offense only, this doesn't cover defensive skills)

1. 30pedTT of Handgun = 270ped
2. 6pedTT of Weapon Handling = 48ped
3. 2pedTT of Inflict Ranged Damage = 23ped
4. 39pedTT of Anatomy = 305ped
5. 43pedTT of Laser Weapon Technology = 324ped
6. 2ped decay on Implant inserter per chip = 10ped

Total Cost of Skills = 980ped

Gear needed
(there are lots of options but this is a common and fairly cheap setup)

1. Vivo T1 = 9ped
2. FAP 50 w/ mu = 55pe
3. Shogun with markup = 180ped
4. Mark.6A plates w/ markup = 210ped (optional, you don't need this if your not going to hunt bots)
5. Mark.5B plates w/ markup = 350ped (optional, you don't need this if your only going to hunt bots)
6. Omegaton A104 amp w/ markup = 180ped
7. NeoPsion 10 Mindforce Implant = 21.99ped
8. Teleportation Chip I w/ markup = 90ped (you can get low tt ones if you want to be cheap and only spend ~10)
9. JUELZ MIC-Killa SG2(L) w/ markup = 57ped (seems to be the cheapest per shot long range tagger right now)

Total Cost of Gear = 1153ped (943ped with only 5Bs and no 6As) (803ped with only 6As and no 5Bs)

Gear + Skills = 2133ped (1923ped with only 5Bs and no 6As) (1783ped with only 6As and no 5Bs)

• It would take a normal couple of hours a day player a few months to reach this stage of skills and gear on a marginal budget.
• A hard core grinder could achieve this in a week, but they would probably loose quite a bit of PED in the process.
• It would take a conservative non-depositing player about a year to achieve this.

The biggest disadvantage (besides cost) to chipping in to this level right away is that you wont have any of the peripheral skills and defense skills you would have gained by skilling naturally.

Within a few weeks of hunting at this level you will gain those skills anyways, so I don't think it is too big of a deal.

The other disadvantage to chipping in is pride. Its great to say you reached such and such goal naturally with no chips. But on the other hand its nice to say "I am such and such level" as well as actually being able to hunt at that level early in your carrier.

Skills and gear can not make up for knowledge of the game, you should still study and research what you are going to do even when you have them, otherwise you will just be a "rich idiot."

If you are playing on Calypso I would highly recommend hunting Drone gen1-3 (North of Jason Center) for a while until your dodge skills increase some and then move up to gen 1-5(south of Zychion Citadel).

If you are on Rocktropia you are a pioneer and no one has figured out a "best" mob to camp yet, but you can hunt Werewolves, Motorhead Security, Medium Zombies and high end Vampires and Vixens. (or Dragons in a Team).

If you are on Next Island you are also a pioneer and there are plenty of mobs you can kill including the Sea Artist Pirates. (I would recommend talking to Manny, Corey or Magyar for more info on Next Island mobs if you are there)

To do any real hunting you will need about 100more dollars(1000peds)

• Full TT Korss H400(L) w/ markup = 203ped
• Save the rest for ammo and repairs = 797ped

300ped of ammo should last you an hour or two of hunting.

• You can expect a bad run to bring back about 50% of your costs in loot.
• You can expect a good run to bring back about 150% of your costs in loot.
• You can expect that in time your average return will be around 80-90%

You MUST sell your loot for Markup to make up for losses vs the TT.
You MUST budget from each run for ped to replace your Korss when it breaks.

Since you wont have any defensive skills yet, you MUST use your "tagger" weapon to bring just one mob at a time to you for killing, if you get 2 or more on you at once your armor decay bill will be very high.

It takes years to learn and relearn all the intricacies of this "Real Cash Economy" but hopefully this demonstrated how even on your first day you can play with the "big boys"

An example of how the skills help you.

A-3 Justifier Mk.II + A104 statistics with 0 skills
2.153dmg/pec and 19.38dmg/sec

Korss H400(L) +A104 statistics with hit and dmg at lvl 15.5
2.941dmg/pec and 33.67dmg/sec

Disclaimer #2: This is the bare minimum for skills needed at this level and does not include evade/dodge or other defense skills. If you can afford them, defense skills are always useful in lowering your defense bills and allowing you to spend more time shooting and less time healing.

VU anouncement for Rocktropia!

Neverdie anounced on his forums today that we will have a Rocktropia VU next week, the week of the 21st.

I am pretty excited to see what all happens.

Here is a copy of what he said in his post.

Feb 2011 What's New?

Heya to you hard Core Believers, Our VU has been Moved by a week. Hopefully the Week of the 21st.

Things to look forward to include,

New Characters
Loot balancing
New BP's
New Apartments
New Shops
Some Quests
New Landmarks

We will be attending SXSW in Austin texas on the 11th of March to Announce Our Launch Event in April!

The April VU will Really tie up all the loose ends in the upcoming VU...

However On a personal note Im very excited to See how things evolve with this next wave of Content, the most interesting thing will be to see is the impact on the local economy.

Next Island vs. Rocktropia

A couple of days ago someone on the Planet Calypso Forums asked which of the new planets being developed by Neverdie Studios would be better for them to visit.
Link to the thread.

Here was my response.

There are two ways to look at it, there are the current conditions and there are the expected soon conditions and expectations. Ill try and give my view on both of those.

Rocktropia Currently:
For the noobs: Organized sweating at the City of Dreams or B.A.M.F HQ on a daily basis. (vixens at cod, and zombies at bamf)
When there are lots of people around there are opalo Dragon or smaller team hunts depending on team size. Haven't been enough for Dragons lately :/

For the not so noob: Werewolves, Motorhead Security Guards, medium Zombies and medium Vixens.
For teams or higher level players, higher level zombies, higher level security guard, Motorhead Guardians, and all levels of Dragons depending on your dmg and protection abilities.

Mining is good, but a lot of the ores/enmatters don't have much value yet since there aren't many blueprints for Rocktropia yet. If you can target the Universial ore/enmatters or the rarer Rocktropia resources that are needed for the current blueprints you could do well.

Population: Low

Driving: There are several road systems as well as city areas that are great for driving in. There is even an underground subway racetrack. There are lots of open areas and paths for driving even when not in the citys so exploring in cars is pretty easy. There are some mountain areas and canyons that you cant cross with cars, but not an excessive amount and IMO adds to the challenge.

Atmosphere:
BAMF area has a strong "Post-Apocalyptic" zombie movie type feel to it, with broken buildings and burned down cars, trash everywhere, etc... which fits in very well with the PVP zone as well as the zombies in the area.
Vampire Cathedral has the big Transylvania looking castle "cathedral" with the vampires all around it and the low lands is a foggy swamp filled with wolves and werewolves.
The Lemmy land areas have lots of skeletons in the ground and darker pagen images which ties in well with the "Motorhead" theme of that area. The Motorhead Security Guards and the Moterhead Guardians are horned bests with leather, spikes and tattoos. (much like you would expect from a heavy metal mythological creature)
City of Dreams, New Harlem & Tangerine city areas all seem like well kept citys with lots of hookers. (the video vixen type mobs)

It definitely feels like you are in a different world, a feeling which is even more strengthened by the separation of storage and auction from calypso as well as the expensive travel fees.

Current Next Island: (I haven't spent near as much time on NI as on Rock)
Noob Friendly? Now that the issues with mobs spawning on the revival have been fixed I think it should be pretty friendly. There seems to be a greater variety of low lvl mobs to hunt which do less damage than the Rocktropian equivalents. (I am not sure if there are regular sweat/swunt teams operating there or not)
Since there are not any Next Island blueprints yet there is a lot of hunting loot that has no use or markup, so you either need to be willing to tt something that will potentially be valuable in the future, or be able to afford storing alot of your loot for the next month or two.

For the not so new:
There are a wide range of mobs that someone just starting to clime the sib ladder can kill which don't require much armor or healing. They do tend to have more hp which means more expensive hunts and a bigger chance at globals/hofs at that playing level.

For teams and higher level players: Lots of Drakes, Sharks, Skeletons etc.. to hunt, high hp again means more expensive per kill but higher chance at big loots if your lucky.

Mining: Shares all the ores/enmatters in common with Calypso so if you can find a trader transporting or you are willing to travel back and forth yourself you can do quite well mining if you target high mu resources.

Driving: There is one huge race track that looks a lot like a rollercoster and is a ton of fun to drive on with friends. There are big desert areas that you can drive in without much worry, so lots of exploring on the big island. CND is more broken up with water and cliffs so not as easy to drive there.

Both CND on Next Island and all of Rocktropia have streaming popular music if you have it enabled in your client loader which can be a nice change from the in game music you are used to on calypso. (though with music you cant make every listener happy, so you may choose to turn it off/down sometimes when it isnt to your taste)

Rocktropia in the near future:
I expect that when there are more blueprints, missions and advertising that there will be another rush of new players on rocktropia and that the economy will do a lot better. There are players in place already to help out and 2 fully stocked booths and a big store already operational to help them out with armor and weapons once they grow out of the Opalo. With new blueprints will come a use for all the hunting loots as well as all the rocktropia specific ores/enmatters which will make all the professions a lot more viable.
There have been hints of unique music oriented aspects to Rocktropia but who knows when or if they will happen or what they would even be. People dream of being able to meet more musicians or being able to present some of their own music in game somehow.

Next Island in the near future.
Blueprints, Missions, Time Travel coming very soon. (hopefully)
With these 3 aspects of Next Island in place it could be the best Planet in the game. Crafting and Time travel will make all the hunting loot more valuable, and draw in lots of people wanting to see the time travel destinations.

In summery:
Both planets are still unfinished in that they don't have what is needed for a full economic cycle. Anyone going there now needs to be prepared to bring everything they need for their stay, or be willing to pay higher prices for stuff brought from Calypso.
There is a lot of potential in both planets, and anyone participating in them now really is going to have an advantage over anyone coming after its done.

For new players and old alike I think the Communities on both Next Island and Rocktropia are great and likely are such friendly places because of their lower current populations.

Next Island is the "Island Resort" feel, and Rocktropia is the darker Music oriented planet.

Both are fun, both are different than what you are used to on Calypso. Some people love one or the other, some people hate one or the other. Its really up to each persons likes and personalities where they should spend their time. For me, I really like Rocktropia because it feels like I am a "Pioneer" in something new, I am able to do something that I never would have been able to do on Calypso starting as late as I did, and that is to be the first on a planet, to explore it before any others and fully take advantage of new systems, new mobs and new items.

Really I think this should be the draw of anyone for these new planets coming online, the ability to be first in something new and great.

Obviously there are greater costs now participating on these new planets, but in the long run I think you get more entertainment and more potential for the future from playing on them than you would on just Calypso.

For someone interested in grinding missions, in known mobs, the ability to go over someone else's research before a hunt to know the best way to do something, to look up where to find which ore, etc... Calypso is still defiantly the best. It has a better economy and is an "easier" play. But for me I really enjoy the challenges of the new planets.

Good Luck in your Adventures,

narfi 

Is the Entropia Universe for you? (cost to play)

Magyar has put together a chart showing the type of game play people should expect from different deposit budgets.
He first posted it on his Society Website at Will I Like Entropia? and then re-posted it at nextislandlife.com where I found it in the thread Want to know if you will like Entropia Universe?

I think he did a pretty good job of describing what each level of play should be expected depending on how much you deposit.  I asked in his thread why he didn't mention the small fraction of players who are able to play at a higher level than their deposit column would suggest, and he answered that he didn't want to give new players unrealistic expectations.

A great chart and a good summery, thanks to Magyar for letting me share it.

Businesses Working Together

I am pretty excited about a business arrangement that I have made with Zal from the society "French Killers"
He is the owner of the store at the Tangerine TP on Rocktropia and the latest VU fixed the item count on his store so he can now place 1000 items in it.

My booth is still bugged and limiting me to 11 slots which with a shopkeeper, sign, and drake head decoration leaves me 3 slots I can place on the counter and 20 in the shopkeeper. This just isn't enough to list the variety of weapons and Dragon Plates that I have or want to sell.
10 types of zk shotguns (I usually have at least 3-5 different types)
5 levels of breer pistols
4 levels of breer carbines
3 levels of rikers
multiple cb, lr, s & hl series guns
7 types of Dragon Plates discovered so far, each of which requires 7 slots for a set
etc.. etc..

Obviously my eyes are bigger than my stomach. Even when the item count gets fixed on my booth it wont hold the quantity of stock that I would like. (unless I invested ALOT of ped into shopkeepers which would get me up to the numbers I needed, but at a cost of more than if I had bought the store Zal has)

I was talking with Zal about it and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  He offered my a table in his store from which I could sell anything I wanted. So now I am able to display a lot more items than I could from just using my booth.  It helps him as well in that it fleshes out the variety of what is displayed in his store, so there will be more people coming through and looking not just at my table, but at everything he has for sale as well. Hopefully I will be able to drive more business towards him through this partnership.

Right now on my table there I have 7 Rudolf Dragon Plates(L), 7 Joplin Dragon Plates(L), 7 Morrison Dragon Plates(L), 1 JUELZ MIC-Killa SG-2 (L), 1 B.A.M.F zk2(L), 1 B.A.M.F zk4(L), 1 B.A.M.F zk5(L), 1 B.A.M.F zk6(L), 1 Breer P1a(L), 1 Breer P2a(L), 1 Breer P3a(L), 1 Breer P4a(L), 1 Breer P5a(L), 1 Riker UL1(L), 1 Riker UL2(L) and 1 Breer M4a(L)

That is 34 items on the table or about 150% as much as I am able to put in my booth right now even with the shopkeeper.

Thanks Zal!