News: MindArk Q&A Speculation

Entropiazine News Update
Entropia Universe News Report

In this issue:
> MindArk Conducts Q&A
> Suspected Auction And Society Interface Update
> Hunting, Mining, Crafting & Space Updates.
> MindArk Hiring in 2019




Last month MindArk conducted a public question and answer session on the Calypso Forum, a lot can be speculated from these posts about updates we might expect in the futures.

I have highlight some of the responses to these questions which would indicate the current future of Entropia behind the scenes.

More Interface Updates And Tweeks

One response to a general auction question about copying links on the auction has lead me to suspect that auction window will likely be updated. MindArk official Dennis responded with:

"This is a good suggestion and something we plan to include in a more general update to the auction interface."

MindArk official Magnus stating to a response to the question "What would you be asking for if you were on our side of this?"

"With the auction system being such a central part to EU what are your plans in modernising it?"

These comments by MindArk have led me to believe that a part of this interface update currently ongoing, we are likely to see a change in the auction interface, and maybe even changes in how the auction process is conducted.

Many may have noticed that the society terminals have been removed and have been replaced with the F11 key (Current Default). MindArk Official Dennis said,

"We do have quite a few plans to implement new features for the Society system, several of which were inspired by suggestions from the community. Unfortunately we cannot give any time projection on when those might be implemented."

MindArk Goals

MindArk Official Henrik discuses plans to expand in 2019 with the hiring in new staff:

"We plan to increase the number of employees at MindArk during 2019. This will allow us to focus on more projects and delivery them more quickly and at a higher quality." 

With many of the side projects developed by MindArk, being put on hold or cancelled and refunded, like Deep Tokens and ComPets, Henrik has stated,

"MindArk has renewed its commitment to focus its resources exclusively on Entropia Universe for the foreseeable future."

On further questioning about the ComPets Deeds and the state of ComPets, if it is actually suspended and still capable of producing revenue for ComPet Deeds holders in the future, Kenrik said,

"As stated in the message to all ComPet Deed holders, there is no ongoing development with ComPet; any revenue it does generate is being accumulated for a later payout but this is expected to be quite small."

All plans involving Arkadia Moon Deeds is set to continue with its current status. MindArk has maintained that they will continue sell Arkadia Moon Deeds on the web store, and only when they have all been sold via the web store, the Deeds will become trade-able among people in Entropia.

Currently a few players have been asking if the MindArk had any intention of updating the game engine, Henrik responded with

"There are no immediate plans to move Entropia Universe to a new game engine, but we do of course keep ourselves informed of the latest developments in the game engine scene."

With the last major graphics engine update leaving many people behind on hardware compatibility and with the intense internal changes to the code that would be required as they adapt Entropia for the new engine, this would not be a viable option for MindArk. The cost and time involved could be spent dealing with current issue, and am personally glad they have responded this way.

Hunting

In the not so distant future expect to see more events and missions based around the lore of Entropia, Henrik stated

"We do indeed intend to put more emphasis on lore and storyline. In fact, we have a dedicated Game Writer and all-around loremaster (James|MindArk) who has been heavily focused on the Calypso storyline for quite some time now."

Dennis goes on to describe in a number of replies the details of changes that was applied during the loot 2.0 update and the flexibility that it will provide the content team.

"Our development team was focused on big structural changes and design for the Mayhem events, as well as the release of Loot 2.0 along with general stability improvement for the client and platform. Now with those projects in place our team will have more time for content development. We have also added more resources to the content team and this is something you will notice in 2019."

This update will allow easier implementations of new equipment and new events in future updates

"In the past there were technical limitations to shared mission progress when teaming, however this is now possible for new missions with the contribution-based features seen in recent dynamic events and Mayhem quests. Our plan is for new missions to utilise this system. Loot 2.0 also gives us more flexibility with item and creature parameters, so look forward to some exciting new items and content in the future."

Mining And Crafting

Loot 2.0 was stated by Dennis does not deal with mining or crafting, and only deals with hunting loot, but mining and crafting stability is constantly being updated.

"We also later made adjustments to reduce volatility in the crafting and mining systems, but that was not directly related to the Loot 2.0 system. Those adjustments were in general very well received by the community, based on feedback received via support cases and forum discussions. The Crafting and mining systems are constantly being monitored and tweaked."

As already mentioned, a number of new things are expected to be released for crafting in the near future, that is clear, but we are also likely to see more mining events.

"We are actually currently working on a mining event that will happen alongside Easter Mayhem, stay tuned for more info soon!"

Space Updates

Henrik mainly answered questions pertaining to space, starting off by apologising for premature announcement of features,

"Development of space in Entropia Universe has certainly progressed much slower than we have wished or anticipated in the past, which led to premature announcement surrounding potential space features or other design plans. We understand that this has led to frustration within the community, and we apologize for that."

With the current camera update, any further development might be delayed due to the tweaking of this, as this is currently the main thing that effects most of the users currently, but MindArk is likely to be looking into updating space drastically in the future.

"Our vision for space is one in which there is a healthy and vibrant interplanetary economy between the various planets and space entities. We also envision space-specific content, but we are not prepared to share specific plans at the moment."

Even though specific plans are not publicly outlined, Henrik did let slip some information,

"We do plan to ultimately add space ships within different classes and with additional functionality, but that would be part of a larger Space release."

Issue 12: Loot 2.0

Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
Compet: Notice to deed holders
Long awaited: Loot 2.0
Hogglo Diablos Attack: Fort Argus!

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]

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Hogglo Diablos Attack: Fort Argus!

Hogglo Diablos have been rampaging around near Fort Argus! The super-sized creatures are the result of a series of genetic experiments performed by deranged criminal Gareth.

Even though Hogglos have once again been pushed back! Attacks so far have occurred near an abandoned outpost. The outpost and surrounding area are covered with white vents that protrude from the ground, indicating the presence of some kind of underground facility.

The door to each vent bears the Omegaton logo. When questioned about their connection to the outpost, Omegaton replied that they simply built the doors and did not assemble the outpost itself. Furthermore they said they had never owned the outpost. All entries regarding the building and ownership of the outpost are currently missing from official records.

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Compet: Notice to deed holders

Compet is available is on a number of systems, excluding any mention of windows mobile OS. Compet is now currently still awaiting on the release on iOS, a statement from creators say that the release of Compet on iOS is in its final phase and should be available shortly although no release date has been stated.

Many things have been implemented since the last time we had a detailed look at Compet, like recent addition of adding in PECs, just like Entropia PEDs and PECs, this will allow people to have battles at a lower prices and the new front page menu which allows you to jump strait into a battle, along with a loads of the new creatures to own.

A small comment to the Compet deed holders indicates that the revenue payment system will be implemented after a number of tasks have been completed.

Assuming that deed payments start when the final product is being marketed to the general public, It has been stated that a number of things are to still being developed before marketing can begin. The Tournament and eSports system is currently in development which should widen the audience and appeal of Compet. Another major part of the concept is the “cross-platform” trading aspect. This feature is currently in development both in Entropia Universe and Compet. Additional language support will also be added for worldwide players and general optimization and fine tuning of game play.

In addition to all of this expect to see strongboxes and buff items called Trinkets. Not much was mentioned about this, but assuming them to be like Entropia Universe's strongboxes, we have an idea on what to expect.2

Deed revenues is already currently being accumulated and payments will begin once ComPet is fully functional. So expect the first payment to be a few months worth's of payments. To back track on the value of the compet deed in Entropia, the original price on the web store was priced at 100 PED per deed, then just as before the web store stopped offering compet deed's the price went up to 120 PED per deed. Since the web store has closed the value of the compet deed declined slowly over time, the average of over 800 sales this month on auction 93 PED per deed. Some deeds going for as low as 88 PED per deed.

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Long awaited: Loot 2.0

"MindArk has been monitoring the community discussions concerning so-called 'loot waves' and will implement changes in the Loot 2.0 and subsequent Version Updates that will address this issue by improving the distribution of resources and items, with the goal of ensuring that loot opportunities are more interesting, dynamic and fair for all participants"

This month MindArk has released a long awaited loot update that overhauled the way in which hunting loot is calculated and distributed, which will significantly improve overall loot returns for the vast majority of participants in the hunting profession. Although the current looting system has been released, there are some changes still being finalized and tested, therefore expect subsequent patches or version updates.

The loot calculations will be optimized and improved to better factor in the various costs associated with hunting activities, this includes healing, ammo consumption, buffs, tool and armor deterioration, attachments, and more.

A new economy rating parameter has been introduced on the item information screens of weapon, attachments and mindforce attack chips, on a scale of from 1 to 100, that indicates the efficiency of a tool and which influences loot calculations. This change from the once dominant damage/pec model will provide the design team at MindArk with more freedom to release exciting and interesting items with a wider range of damage output and special effects.

Since the update general loot return has improve from creature to creature, no more no loots, ammunition has been removed from hunting loot has been replaced with shrapnel. Expect the price of Nova and Blaza fragments to rise, as none as seen yet has been dropped.

Armor has also had a bit of an update, Armor now decays significantly less per point of damage absorbed, and no longer has a minimum decay based on total protection, it will now always decay proportionally to the amount of damage absorbed. Armor and armor platings now decay independently based on the amount of damage they each actually absorb, rather than both decaying as if absorbing the full amount of received damage. Armor can now absorb all incoming damage down to a minimum of 0.1 point of damage taken, instead of the previous 1.0 points of damage.

A profession level requirement will be introduced for unlimited armors. Meeting the required level results in the armor offering full protection at all condition values. If the profession requirement is not met, armor works as before, with protection decreasing relative to condition.

Many of the changes seem to be well received by many, but a few are saying they miss getting more globals and would like to see more loot other than shrapnel.

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First Laser Sniper Master!

A landmark moment occurred this month with “Gaina Messi91 Cristi” became the first ever avatar to reach the skill level of Entropia Master, attaining level 200 in the Laser Sniper (Hit) profession.

Issue 8: Virtual revolution

Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
PvP: Sunday Event
Compets: Let's find a fight.
VR: Getting plugged in

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]

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PvP: Sunday event

This weekend many Entropians will be flocking to Fortress Invincible to take part in a PvP event.

The tickets to this PvP event costs only 0.10 PED with first, second and third price being 20 PED and in addition the PED value of the weapon damage and ammo spent during the event will be added to prizes.

With an easy entry cost everyone is more than welcome to join the official Fortress Invincible PVP Event. The event is a Non-lootable PVP Team play event. Armor will not provide protection and but will not deteriorate. If you are thinking of taking part or looking to find more details about the event, take a look at the event list to see the full details and to register. The event will run for an hour on Sunday the 4th of September at Fortress Invincible starting at 18:00 UTC.

Aim for the head for the most damage and good luck to everyone taking part!

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Compet: Let's find a fight

This month arena battles has had a major update! It is now a great deal easier to find arena battles, you can now select a number or battle packs to search in the background as you manage your village.

Before you could be searching for hours on flicking between battle packs and not finding anyone, but now this option allows you to find people a lot easier. This feature will make the game run smoother from the players perspective when it comes to actually finding a battle.

As for other competitors in the current marketplace, pokemon go is going threw a big hype and during this period it would not be a great idea to market Compets.

There have been some questions regarding when deed holders will start receiving Compet deed revenue payouts, an official statement states:

"Payment of ComPet Deed revenue share to Deed Holders will commence once ComPet leaves the Beta stage. To those who are playing ComPet Open Beta, we thank you all for your continuing feedback!"

But with no sign of an official release date being announced, the date of the first deed payment is an unknown factor.

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VR: Getting plugged in

This month Mindark announced that it is optimizing the Entropia Universe platform to fully support the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2, Valve and HTC's SteamVR and other immersive Virtual Reality platforms.

Entropia Universe will provide developers with solutions for monetizing a wide variety of virtual games and applications in addition to its own award winning multi-planet MMORPG universe.

David Simmonds, Entropia Universe head of business development stated:

"With Facebook's Acquisition of Oculus and Valve producing its own immersive experience with HTC, Virtual Reality is on the threshold of becoming the great entertainment medium of the new millennium." 

Issue 6: Eomon hunting season!

Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
Eomon: Pheromone Reading Peaking Across Calypso
Building The Future: The next stage of Plot Ownership
ComPet: Approaching Open Beta

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]

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Eomon: Pheromone Reading Peaking Across Calypso

Current CDF readings of the Eomon pheromones are peaking across the northern continent of Eudoria leading in to the migration of Longtooth and Eomon. The annual Eomon migration period is here and the current CDF map of the migration pattern has been released.

The data predicts that the Longtooth Migration Path will be slightly altered this year. Aside from these small changes, forecasts indicate that the Longtooth migration will continue as normal. The Eomons are the giants of Calypso. Their annual migration pattern on the continent of Eudoria has been recorded since at least 2005 but Xenobiologist's are yet to conclude further information about this event or the purpose of this migration.

The RDI Xenobiologist at the Minopolis Science tent is accepting Eomon Blood Samples in exchange for limited weapon amplifiers, to help in the further research the Eomons and the cause and effects of the migration process. New Iron, Bronze and Silver missions are now available for Eomon and Longtooth and can be found at Iron Mission Terminals at cities, settlements and outposts all around Planet Calypso.

Click here for the official web comic

This year Entropiazine will be tracking and reporting on the migration as it happens, visit http://entropiazine.blogspot.co.uk/p/migration-watch.html for the daily reports.

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Building The Future: The next stage of Plot Ownership

Within the last 48 hours we have had an exciting development for the plot holders on Planet Calypso, information has been released on how the possibility to become virtual land developers and build their own centres of production and supply!

Currently 3 settlements exist and can be found at Southern Ithaca (70886, 85778), Livas (66449, 85449) and Isle of Troy (80232, 66387)

Construction:

The user interface will let you choose, preview and place your constructions on a grid. At this point you’ll be able to review all building costs. Once you’re totally happy you can proceed with the transaction, at which point you’ll be shown the construction time. Constructions are can be upgraded, outlying walls may boast elegant arches, gates and pillars, allowing you to modernise and improve your builds! Currently only one type of house is available, but this is merely the beginning.
You can also start again at any point by demolishing the building and regaining roughly 50% of your initial investment, which can then be used on your next build!

Grow Your Business:
Another feature to be added will be the possibility of creating a vegetable garden after building your house. This will enable you to become a producer of organic goods and a major player in the supply chain. You will literally be able to ‘grow’ your own business!

Village Development:
As a property owner you are also a citizen of a village and the development of village life will be the focus of future. Being a responsible village citizen will have a positive effect on the village community as a whole. This communal dimension will be a new aspect on planet Calypso.

We are now certainly reaching the end of the colonisation phase and even though Calypso will always be getting new colonists, we are now moving into the a whole new settlement and civilisation phase on Calypso.

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Calypso Summer Strongboxes 2016!

It is start of the summer time in Calypso, with the usual summer time hunting buzz and all new summer strong boxes available on the web store. The summer strongboxes contain the same as the classified strongboxes plus a few extra new rare rings will be available. Unique Rings will drop only once ever, so buy your Classified Strongbox at the Entropia Universe Webshop now!

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ComPet: Approaching Open Beta

Since the ComPet Closed Beta period began it has provided the ComPet development team with a wealth of valuable testing data and user feedback. This has resulted in significant improvements to the overall stability and game play of the ComPet experience.

ComPet is scheduled to transition to an extended open beta phase within a matter of weeks, with an eye toward further design and balance refinements, the further testing and polishing will be in preparation for the full release. This phase will be open to the general public meaning the system will no longer be wiped and transactions in the ComPet Shop will be open. There is still currently very little information about how this game will be linked to the pet system in Entropia, but I would assume that we will soon find out.

The product development and marketing budgets for ComPet were fully financed via ComPet deeds.

Unexpectedly is has been released that nearly all of the coding of the ComPet infrastructure and client was outsourced, meaning that MindArk’s developers have continued to focus on improving Entropia Universe threw this time, and acording to MindArk's press release the Entropia Universe and Calypso teams have even grown since the ComPet project began.

It would be expect that ComPet development will continue long after this phase, so expect the future of ComPet's to have a ton of new pet's lined upped in future releases.

Issue 5: Compet Beta.

Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
Compet: Deed prices and beta released.
President of Virtual Reality: Complaints about the election.
Hunting Season.

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]

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Compet: Deed prices and beta released.

This month has been a mixed month for the Compet game. The release date was held back seven days before the beta testing period of the game, although it is not the first time the date has been held back. In the last week deed prices went up on the web store from 100 to 120 PED per deed, a number of shop owners not knowing would of been a bit slow in reacting resulting in flash sales and at a loss compared to the new market price. Currently the deeds can not be brought from the web store while the close beta is running, the deeds can still be brought on the auction currently around 130 PED each.

The general reception of the game in beta is quite good overall, and if Mindark marketing goes well, Compet can become a great pet fighting game in years to come. Currently the game has inactive moment when it comes to battling other players, but this is due to the game being in beta and will have a limited user base. There has been a few small complained about equality of battle for newer creatures and the speed it takes for a player to level up their creatures.

Originally it was intended that Compet would be a close beta for the deed holders only, but anyone with the link to the beta game currently has access to it, as it is not currently not linked to Entropia anyone can sign up and play using an email account or Facebook, and a number of places have posted its download link location publicly.

In the ComPet Shop, players have the ability to increase their PED balance through real-cash deposits. Deposited PED can then be exchanged for gold and diamonds in ComPet. Gold and diamonds are ‘soft currencies’: they do not represent real-world monetary value. It is perfectly possible to play ComPet using only the soft currencies.

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President of Virtual Reality: The people's thoughts.

This month has been a hard month for Jon Jacob Neverdie, many have slammed him and the election process in Entropia, leading many to think this was a self proclamation. Many people in the forums of Entropia have complained about the process of election, complaining that originally all voting process should of been handled in game with the old voting booths and that it was originally intended for deeds holders. Many people question the process and authenticity of the election and many people have complained about the fact that they could not put their money forward themselves to be apart of the process, along with the other two contenders having effectively zero information about their own campaign.

Jon Jacob Neverdie created an open post on Entropia forum to be slammed by the many people and their view on the teleporter charge along with other complaints about Entropia economy in general. Neverdie has........ A number of the older Entropians have even talked about boycotting Rocktropia altogether. The small amount of player who have decided to boycotting Rocktropia would have a very small to no effect on Rocktropia economy.

Other than talking to the Entropians, Neverdie has been on a press tour around about his campaign for creating jobs in virtual reality, a small amount of press has appeared about this, but not much in the way of headlining. A number of press articles exist just equally dismissing his claims for virtual jobs as a pipe dream at the cost of the average player.

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Hunting Season.

This month Icarus was overrun by Marcimex deep from underground. The subterranean terrors have never been seen above ground! Sightings have even been reported from as far out as Jurra Plateau and around Twin Peaks. Many people hunted these creatures until they have now returned to their underground lair.

It is just over a month away until the migration season and many people are getting geared up to hunt the Eomons and Longtooths while they migrate. Keep a close eye on CDF pheromone reports of the migration paths.

Here is a recap of 2015 migration:

Longtooths:
67912, 83266 - Young.
67564, 83554 - Old.
66972, 83944 - Providers
66456, 83972 - Guardians


Eomon youngs
87767, 79922 - Young.
87877, 79833 - Young, mature and old.
87864, 79937 - Provider and guardian.
87854, 79846 - Old alpha.
87879, 79794 - Stalkers.



Within the next month we are expecting CDF pheromone report, and if anything is made public within the next month, you will hear about it here.

Issue 4: Guess whos back

Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
Entropia Market: What can happened in the year?
Compets: Ten days way from release!
Robot wars: What has happened to Orthos oil field?
President of Virtual Reality: The future of Entropia.

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]

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Entropia Market: What has happened in a year?

The Deed Market:

The last year has been and interesting year for the market prices of some of the items in the Entropia Universe. The webstore have finally sold out of Arkadia underground deeds (AUD) this year, and as expected the prices went up.

It has been two years since the web store opened for the sale of 200,000 deeds to the general public, originally each deed would of cost 50 PED on the web store, offering the ability to earn 5% of Arkadia Undergrounds profits divided between 200,000 deeds. After the final deeds were sold, the price instantly went up on the auction over night to 75 PED. Since then the price has slowly dropped back down to a steady 60 PED.

Arkadia is not the only deed to do well this year, Calypso land deeds have gone up in value by 130 PED since last year due to the land grab on the original deeds. Once a player has 10 Calypso land deeds, they can claim a property on calypso, adding an (X) on the end of the deed. These deed will still continue to produce revenue but will be lower in price on the auction by about 100 PED.

As for Compets, we are yet to see the pricing and payout times, the speculation is that it will be weekly payout just like the Calypso land deed. Just like Arkadia and Calypso before, the price on the auction will only be a two or three PEDs above the web shop price, and I would assume just like the other deeds before it, that when the web shop runs out, I expect the price to rise up to about 120 PED.

The Consumer Market:

Force nexus, mind essence, and sweat have remained a steady price over the year. The current acceptable average price for swear is 1.7 PED per K among the sellers, but remember that anyone who sweats for a few PED is always looking for a few pec extra. A few people take advantage of desperate players looking for a quick sale to resell, and some players are willing to pay 2.0 PED per K.

Here is a bit of advice from an older player who remembers when sweat was 12 PED per K, this market is all supply and very little demand. If you sweat enough the buyers will come to you, older players looking to buy sweat know where the newer players hang out, so keep you eye out for the best buying price when sweating and sell for that price. The more you have from waiting, the better the PED you get over all from sweating.

Nutrio Bars have been sold the 260%-300% markup, costing almost 3 times the TT price, we are yet to see what happens after the android app is released in 10 days, currently everyone is stuffing their pets to have a funky companion anticipating whats to come next. The street price of fruit can be between 13ped - 15.5ped per K. The sweetstuff markup has remain very steady around 116% on auction over the last year.

Oil had a week of low sales, as low as 40.47 PED sold in one week this month causing the 110% price hike a few week ago, the price has returned to the usual 104-105%, with the robot invasion at Orthos oil field having very little to no effect on the market price compared to last year.

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Robot wars: What happened to Orthos oil field?

After hearing a few whispers from here and there about there being no more oil line at the small rig without killing robot, I just had to investigate...

When I departed from Entropia last year, there only was the odd scouting robot attacking the famous line at the oil rig, before that, only other players attacked now and again, with the older and stronger characters protecting the line, it was no problem at all.

Suddenly the oil rig was attacked by a swarm of a slightly heavier class of robot. The robots built their own rigging structure, and today oil is only acquired from the rig by killing these robots. The protecting player and the riggers could not hold off the robot invasion leaving the oil field to the robots.

This major change has not had any effect on oil prices, and as with the flux of new colonist that will be arriving from Compets, new player will have to go back to earning skills and sweating.

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 President of Virtual Reality: The future of Entropia.

You may not know it yet, but "Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs" has set into motion a number of plans to be implemented by 2020!

"Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs’ Plan to Create 3 Million Jobs with ‘Public Transport’ IPO. Job Creation Strategy Includes Revolutionary Model to Recruit Gamers to Combat Artificial Intelligence, Introduce Minimum Wage Standards in Virtual Worlds, Privatize the Public Transport System and Launch a VR Stock Exchange."

- http://www.presidentofvirtualreality.com/ -

So what does these implemented jobs entail you may ask? As far as details, we do not know, but here is what we do know. NEVERDIE wishes to make a privatized transport system and in doing so by 2020 all free teleportations via the teleporters scatter across Entropia must be paid for in transport tokens, which will be constructed. This will open some opportunities, a new crafting item, more chanced for private transport hire, and a public transport system, paid for by via a minimum digital wage provided from the transport funds.

Things start to get a bit hazy over info behind the construction and conscription system. 25% of the funds will used to support the war against AI, which to me sounds like a funky addition to the hunting system, where you can get paid per hour to do protect teleporter constructor and repair teams and kill robots invading the area.

That is not all, NEVERDIE intends to also bring out a public transport share for the new transport system, and to usher in an old concept that was never quite implemented before on Entropia, the stock exchange! People will be able to buy and sell stock in Entropia, and not only in game but in another new app. The details on this are also vague, and it will be interesting to see if this will make an improvement over the already existing auction.

Finally, and the most complicated of all, NEVERDIE wishes to make Entropia cross platform by creating plug ins for games and worlds developed on a variety of graphic engines, including Unreal, Unity and Lumberyard and emerging Augmented Reality applications using HoloLens or Magic Leap that might otherwise stand alone.


I do not know about anyone else, but feel sorry for the other unknown contenders. I knew for sure that NEVERDIE would win the votes, he is the most well known avatar in Entropia, ever since NEVERDIE became a legend in 2008 for mortgaging his house to buy 'Club NEVERDIE' now known as 'FOMA' and entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the most valuable virtual item ever owned costing $635,000. After a year he had profited on his investment and paid back his mortgaging. NEVERDIE later sold FOMA and established NEVERDIE studios and which is the owner Rocktropia.

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Compets: Ten days away until release!

With the release of Compets in just 10 days, everyone is very eager to find out what the game will be like. Mindark have made quite a few comments about Compets during its development, and a ton of information about the game can be taken from the screen shots of the gameplay footage.

This is the information I know about what we should be expecting. Each player will own their own village which can be raided by other players as stated by Mindark. In the screen shot above we can see the set up and speculate what we can expect. Along the top from the center to the right, we have 3 forms of resources, gems, PEDs and gold. In the top left we have the players rank or level with the protection time from the next raid, under that I would assume to be pets and max pets. The bottom left looks like quests, achievements, and battle. The bottom right looks like statistics, friends and a prize or shop button. Behind this building we can see a building icon in the village, plots can be built. I can assume that one of the buildings will be used to generate gold because of the maximum gold resource at the top.

Here we can see 3 types of battle modes, we already know about raiding and arenas, I am going to take a guess that forest mode is like training, fighting wild animals. There is not much I can say about the battle sequence itself, other than it looks to be a turn based arena style game. We have yet to see raid mode and forest mode. 

From this image we know that we will be able to buy combat skills from the library in game. We can not tell if this will be a building constructed in game or a menu. But what we can tell is a few of the statistics that the creatures will have in game. Each skill will have a cool down time and some skills will cost mana. There will also be stamina, which seems to be one of the factors to victory.

One thing I do know for sure is there are quite a lot of people looking forward to fighting their pets which have followed them around in Entropia for a while. There is not much news about arenas within Entropia but hopefully as soon as the app is released, the arenas should open too!

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The social stuff...

I set up a Facebook page ages ago and never mentioned it, share, subscribe, like, jellybean:

https://www.facebook.com/entropiazinemagazine/

I know some of you have missed me, and its thanks to the people who have spoken to me in game and left comments that I am back here. It is good to be back, and I look forward to writing next months issue and battling some people with spike my pet sapphire devil!

Entropiazine 1st Issue

Entropiazine
A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine

In our first publication of Entropia Zine:
Market: Avoiding the dead skin markets.
History: How did humans come to be on Calypso?
Property: Land grab areas owned by one society.
News: Pet fighting for mobile devices and ComPet Deeds.

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Publisher's Comments:

Hello, I am [Felix Zell Shallow], most people know me in game as just Felix. It has been a long time since I returned to Entropia. The Cry-engine update did as I expected, and knock quite a few of the big players out of the game, and returning to what feels like a whole new game, I was one of these players.

I come from a time in Entropia when people used to taxi other people by foot to teleporters on a single planet and sweat was 12k per PED. Im sure many of the other older player will remember and still call Entropia Universe, "Project Entropia".

A lot of things have changed in Entropia in the last few years. The most well known is the ability to drive vehicles, with a huge range to selection to choose from, from good old fashioned off road 4x4's to space ship, and everything in between

For the the people who hardly know me, I am the leader of the society Entropia Market, once a quite well known group of traders which used to hang around Atlas Haven, Twin Peak and Port Atlantis. Sadly along with the update, like most players at the time, and many other societies, became dead.

Even though Entropia has changed a lot over the last few years, the basics of trading are exactly the same, and I was able to jump straight back in where I left off, setting up new contacts and making new friends along the way.

The main reason I am writing this E-zine is to help to improve the game as a whole, the economy of this game is widely based on the value of its players and the way MindArk controls and represents its own product. With that in mind my goals are purely to enlighten younger players and enhance the economy of the game by pointing out things that attention should be drawn too.

Thank you for reading, and hope you find it enjoyable and helpful inside Entropia!

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Avoiding the dead skin markets.

One of the unavoidable annoyances of any hunter is not being able to sell their loot. New player may scrap their items for quick PEDs at the trade terminal, but for an old experienced played this can lead to a very big stack of items that can not be traded!


This is highly important to understand, for something to have a value, someone must have a need for it, and Entropia's structure for hunting, mining and crafting is based on this. The main reason for the lack of people wanting to buy such stacks of items is simply down to the lack of demand for the items in the game. A good example of this is Snablesnot Skins, last month had no sales on the auction, and I know it is not down to supply, With the some people offering trade terminal price for it at auction, with not a single bid.


The problem could be one of three things, there are hardly any people who craft, which I very much doubt, or hardly any blueprint which use theses items, or the product that is produced is not in demand. No matter where the lack of demand stems from, the market for these stackable items seems to be a dead one currently in Entropia.

To the hunters, I recommend to avoid assuming that you will be able to sell these stacks of items at all, it would be a waste of your PED on the auction fee to place these items on the auction if no one is buying at all. Be prepared to sell these items to the trade terminal, or stack them for a while longer, to see if the market returns.

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How did humans come to be on Calypso?

In early days humans traverse their own star system, their home planet of Earth was ravaged for resources to the point of where recycling was a necessity, a number of the planets in the humans home star system were terraformed and colonized including many of the asteroids in the asteroid belt.

The furthest reach of human expansion was not far away from their home star. It was not one but a number of technologies that proved to be needed to cross the great void of space to the next nearest star. The Odysseus project was developed, seven huge unmanned probes built in orbit designed to travel vast distances, probe planets, and construct bases ready for human arrival. The probes main technological advancements, a mixture of shielding, AI and jump rail technology.

Once one of the probes uses its jump rail, which is a one use technology, it jumps vast distances to a location. On arrival the probe begin surveying and constructing drones in orbit, the drones go about mining and constructing bases for human arrival, then finally when the base was self sustaining the probe would constructing itself new jump rail to jump to a new location. Once the base reached a certain size it would be able to construct it own Odysseus probes. One of these spin off technologies from the project is used quite commonly today, the teleportation technology has erode many barriers in for the human race, not only distance, but also culture.

In the spirit of space travel humans followed the probes trail in massive colony ships adorned with their own jump rails headed for Calypso....

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Land grab areas all owned by one society.

It may be a little know fact that land areas can be owned be by society leaders. At this current moment in time, all the land areas on Calypso are owned by one small society. So why is this such a big deal? I hear you ask. Well, all the land grab area create a revenue in hunting, mining and trading taxs, as well as settings for pvp and radar of the area. All this revenue goes the leader of a society the society that owns the area.

Now, what if I told you that all the land areas are owned by one society? One small group of 30 people in the society "WhySoSerious", currently do own all the land areas on Calypso.

This month I met up with KATILA, the well known estate owner on Entropia, as the details of the ownership of the areas was revealed to us, and the nature of the society owner. A KATILA reported to me, the owner of the area was willing to cut a deal for the land area, as number of well equipped, skilled members of "WhySoSerious" stand ready. I personally will not disclose any details of this deal, apart from a price was laid down to claim ownership from the society.

It would be interesting thing to see if this deal was agreed to or not, in the next month or so. It would be even more interesting to see some other competition to steak a claim on one of these land areas.

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Pet fighting and ComPet Deeds.

Unless you have been living under some natural stones for last few months, you would have heard about about the pet fighting game coming to Android. Little is known about the pet system to come to Android but what is known, is the mixed view from the community about it. From a small poll done on the forum about who will try/play it at least once. 44.04% are totally not interested in the app what so ever, but the rest are interested in at least trying this Android application out!

Currently not much is known at all about the battle system, or how the game play will play out, but what is known is the fact the auction is littered with ComPet Deeds, and pet are once again running around following their masters.

One thing is for certain is people are uncertain, about deed payouts, when this application is coming, even how much to price a pet for sale, how to get a whip to tame, it is all so new and unsettled and it shows. Once the whip can simply be brought from the trade terminal, but today can only be crafted, It will be interesting if this will remain crafted or will it be available to all via the trade terminal.

Mindark's first Android app was not received very well, lacking some wanting features and many hope that this application will not be another bad side tool to Entropia Universe.