VU17: Gameplay Updates

Some less well known updates to the game play elements have been added in the version update along with the graphical update and the new tool tier system.


Trading
A few changes have been made to the displaying of information on items to the display, the current trade terminal value of attached attachments is now displayed in the base item’s tooltip info and prices and markup are now displayed in the tooltip info when hovering the mouse over items in a shop or shopkeeper.

One of handy feature that has been added to help protect items from accidental trade. The button to toggle the ability to protect an item can be found in the item info window. Items that are protected will show a “P” on the item icon status bar.

The name of equipped weapons and tools with a condition below 10% is now displayed in yellow text in the dashboard.


Entropia Exchange
The "Share Center" has been renamed to the "Entropia Exchange", which can be accessed by right clicking your PED card in your inventory.

Buy orders have been added to the Entropia exchange. Buy orders always match the lowest available price first. Buy orders will match older Sell orders first if there are multiple Sell orders with the same price.

A market history graphs and transactions tab has also been added to the Entropia exchange, to displays a history of market prices, share transactions and revenue payouts.


Turrets And Destructible Environment
The best part of the recent version update by far is the changed to turrets. Creatures killed by automated turrets, drowned, or despawned by the system will return loot in the form of Shrapnel, when appropriate.

Destructible environmental items now also provide loot in the form of Shrapnel. Destructible explosive items that cause damage to nearby creatures transfer their loot to the damaged creatures.

Codex Released and Shares Trading

Bestiary Codex Released

Anyone who keep track of Entropiazine will know that back in July MindArk announced that the current mission system will be replaced with a new mission system.

Today the citizens were handed a new Codex system today containing information on the creatures they have killed, along with a new ranking system based on contribution. The bestiary list in the codex will automatically be added when a person makes their first kill with the new system.

There will also be a period where both the new and old systems will be in place at once, during which kills on qualifying creatures will result in progress on both the old and new system.

The grace period between the two systems will extend approximately one year, if you complete the requirements for the old iron mission during the cross over period, you will receive the usual reward, but you will not be able to begin the next mission of the old system.

When the one year cross over period has elapsed, all missions from the old system will be disabled for all participants. Progress will no longer be possible for the missions, and uncompleted missions will not provide any rewards.

Crystal Palace Shares For Sale

In other news today, we also see the release of the ability to sell shares in the shares system. Right now people are buying and selling shares in the new system.

Back in May Crystal Palace Shares was released to the public, being the first land area to implement the share system.

500,000 shares are available shares equalling to 100% of the Crystal Palace's land area and was originally sold for 10 PED or $1.00 USD each. All the shares were sold in less than 3 days.

Currently the price of each share is around 17.50 PED, but we can not predict if the price will raise or fall. The revenue from the shares have an average of 0.01 PED each per week, payed every Monday.

The estate is be managed by the official avatar "MindArk CrystalPalace Manager". Energized Fertilizer necessary to maintain creature spawns in the biodomes will be acquired by "MindArk CrystalPalace Manager" at the normal auction at market prices.

News: Crystal Palace Shares

In the previous few updates we have covered that crystal palaces would be the first land area in Entropia to be sold as shares and in the last update we seen this starting to be implemented, just like the deeds that currently exist in game, if purchased, you will be able to earn a percent of the hunting tax on Crystal Palace.

Currently the prices of the shares are set to cost 10 PED each during the starting period, and a total of 500,000 share are up for sale. The fund earned will go to the current land area owner, "Buzz Erik Lightyear", whom had trouble selling as a whole land area due to the price.

Revenue is generated from hunting activity in the four Crystal Palace biodomes, not including the cave areas. 95% of revenue is paid as dividends to shareholders.

5% of revenue is allocated for the cost of the Energized Fertilizer required for the running of the biodomes, event prizes, and other estate maintenance and improvements.

Tax rate in all biodomes will be initially set to 4.5%. MindArk states that these setting can potentially be voted on by shareholders in the future. Payments of the revenue will be payed every Monday.

The estate will be managed by the official avatar "MindArk CrystalPalace Manager". Energized Fertilizer necessary to maintain creature spawns in the biodomes will be acquired by "MindArk CrystalPalace Manager" at the normal auction at market prices.

Crystal Palace Space Station shares can be acquired via the new share center interface, or in the Entropia Universe Webshop. The new share center interface can be access by right clicking on the your PED card.

Currently you are only able to buy these shares. Crystal Palace shares will be able to be traded in the version update currently scheduled for mid September (approximately 120 days from initial sale).

News: Catch up on 2019 (First Quarter)

Entropiazine News Update
Entropia Universe News Report

In this issue:
> Deep Token Project Dropped By MindArk
> Swedish Loot Box Laws
> Announcement Of Crystal Palace Deeds
> User Interface Update

Deep Token Project Dropped By MindArk

Earlier this year MindArk developed and promoted DeepToken, a type of crypto currency token offering with the ambition of raising funds to create an intellectual property and digital asset bank, as well as improving Entropia Universe.


With time it has become evident that the ambitious project of DeepToken will not be able to be fulfilled. Therefore, the MindArk Board of Directors has decided to suspend the project and refund all the investments made to MindArk related to DeepToken.

Swedish Loot Box Laws

On the first of January 2019 a new Swedish law which affects lootbox systems that is used in many computer, mobile, and console games will go into effect. MindArk’s legal representatives has advised them on this new law and therefore MindArk need's to take the necessary steps to comply with this new regulation.

The consequences of the new law will be that users located using Swedish IP will no longer be allowed to purchase Strongboxes or Strongbox keys in the Entropia Universe web shop from this date.

It will still be possible for anyone in Entropia Universe to find boxes within Entropia Universe, but users with Swedish IP will not be able to open them unless they have Strongbox Keys acquired prior to January 1, 2019.

Strongbox Keys acquired prior to January 1, 2019 will continue to function even for users in Sweden, but they will not be able to purchase new Strongbox Keys from this date.

If you do not reside in Sweden or use a Swedish IP Strongboxes and Strongbox Keys will continue to work like previously, this change only affect users in Sweden or with a Swedish IP.

Announcement Of Crystal Palace Deeds

A hardly mentioned announcement was made back in December by MindArk, that a possible  500,000 available shares equal to 100% of the Crystal Palace's land area and will be sold for 10 PED or $1.00 USD each.

The now 13 year old Crystal Palace consists of four different dome locations, featuring two unique creature to hunt. When the Crystal Palace was originally sold to the current private owner in 2009, it was one of many times a Guinness Book of Records title holder. Shareholders will get a proportional cut of the total loot collected across all four domes. in 2018, the Crystal Palace earned an approximate return on investment of 17% for its current owner.

Buzz Erik Lightyear the current owner of Crystal Palace has made a public statement on the matter,

"In the beginning of 2018 I had been thinking about the idea to sell Crystal Palace. It has been a great honor and it has been very exciting, fun and rewarding to have owned it all these years. But it was on my mind that perhaps I needed to move on from Crystal Palace, as owning such a large investment didn't make as much sense anymore for me due to real life issues."

Buzz continues to talk about his interaction with MindArk,

"I asked Mindark again about this issue and what can be done. After these discussions they suggested to me the idea to turn Crystal Palace into a Deed sale. I felt very optimistic about this new idea! A new evolution for Crystal Palace. It was not only a great solution to selling Crystal Palace as I had been thinking about all year... But it really felt like a win-win situation."

Buzz also shared his vision for the the future of Crystal Palace,

"This would give many players, hunters, and investors the opportunity to own a part of Crystal Palace! I love the idea of that. The future of Crystal Palace could be great. Having large amounts of people who invest in it would mean more would want it to be successful. This could bring new opportunities for events or other exciting things that could happen in the future. And all of these positive things would increase the revenue for all of the future deed holders."

Buzz even goes on to say what we can expect,

"Mindark would be taking care of the deeds, sale and everything they need to do in order to implement and make this a reality. They have valued Crystal Palace and they will share the sale revenue in order to accommodate this change and costs associated with such an endeavour. After the announcement many people have been asking me for more information about it. I hope MA will be able to give some more details for all those who had questions about it all in the near future."

User Interface Update

On the 19th of Feb, version 16 was one of the most major updates to Entropia Universe's user interface since version 10, the CryEngine update in 2009.

This update introduces a number changes and enhancements to the controls, the movement, the camera and the targeting systems. To anyone picking up the controls for the first time will quickly handle the new controls, but older player will find it a struggle.

One of the major improvement to the system is the abilit
y to quickly access the auto use tool, threw a mouse click or a single key press, with no need to toggle. The auto targeting, auto using tool and the auto move to targets have been highly improved and has been stream lined into one simple process.

Camera movement and manual WSAD movement with the camera is still something that needs a little more attention, MindArk in following updates addressed some of these concerns, adding more camera control in the options window.

Older players instantly notices a number of useful feature and control have also been removed from the action library, one of which is the ability to grab someone or something status/health bars. Auto use tool has now been replace with interact or use tool and vehicle up is now jump.

Overall the update has been received well in the community among the newer players, the older players are still adjusting with a mixed bag of opinions.

Two updates have been briskly released by MindArk with more updates to be expected soon speculated to be focused more around the camera controls and movement.

If you are an old player trying to learn the new controls, or a new player wanting to learn about the new interface, click here for an up-to-date interface guide for Entropia!