Slashdot Mirror
Project Entropia's Universe Solidifies
Psyiode writes "Swedish interactive entertainment developer MindArk today announced the virtual universe Project Entropia is going gold on January 30th 2003. If you'll recall, Project Entropia is a MMORPG where everything is purchased with real money and slowly degrades during use. Could this be the way most online games will be played (and paid for) in the future?"
We play to escape reality, not be held back by it.
[o]_O
Last time I checked the beta out, it lacked certain prerequisites for a good game environment, including the ability to walk. Seriously. The character models had no walk animation, and instead, just slid around. I have serious doubts about this game, mostly because it seems that more effort has gone into the complex systems (read: economy) than into the user experience. Just my 2 cents.
Why would I want to do this on line. I have enough problems with spending money on things that decay in the real world?
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Yep, they're purchased with real money until someone figures out how to steal them or counterfit them.
Welcome to the world where you pay for the privilege to be cheated and robbed!
Anyway, it better be a blast otherwise it's just going to suck ASS
And I thought EverQuest was a soul sucking endeavor that never ended. Now you can drain your bank account at the same time while you feed your online addiction.
~S
Will PK & loots be treated as real murder & robbery?
seriously man, you really suck, I mean, if the YOU FAIL IT guy was here right now, you'd be toast
your probly better off just burning your money then playing the game when you burn your money you will realise how stupid it is and stop doing it
-the sueil
There's no way I would put money into an MMORPG like that. They all get hacked or exploited some how eventually, and then what happens to the guys who put hundreds of dollars into the game? On the other hand, if i could be the first one to get a copy of the hack...
They're saying that they've invested over 15 million USD in the game already and will continue to invest over 5 million USD/year! That sounds like a horrific amount of money for them to try and make back. Expect a virtual cup of coffee to cost 10 bucks real money!
Also, I live in Sweden and work in the Internet industry here and I've never heard of this company. If their investment has been as large as they say it has, I would expect to have heard something about them. (I would also expect them to build a website that *doesn't* crash my browser (IE 6!) every time I visit the site!).
Just my 2 Entropian cents!
A little planning goes a long way...
I won't be buying that!
...to play this game when RealLife (tm) has been up to version 5.6 since a few million years already ?
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
ok, so the way the game works is that if you kill and steal from someone, you become an outlaw, and then people can kill/steal from you without becoming an outlaw, so you're going to be a target. What is going to happen is a gang will form of the top 10-20 players who will just go around killing, stealing from and dividing up the goods of every other player in the game. As far as I know, there is no reason this wouldn't happen. Its like living in a world with no police, it would just be large gangs.
What are they smoking and why aren't they sharing!?
So when you sell items in the game and make money do they credit your charge account?
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
But are MindArk going to hand out free sandwich?
Why would I want to pay for something that does not exist and "degrades" over time, just like the real world. I am curious as to how this economy is going to work. Is it going to be setup like "paypal," where one dollar is worth one "Entropia" dollar, or will there be an exchange rate? On the surface this concept is neat, but I fear that someone will crack this really quick and leave all the suckers who paid real money out in the cold. I think this concept would work better in a "Sims" type environment, not a space epic. Is little timmy going to have to save up to buy that "Millenium Falcon" in Entropia?
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Real life has WAY better graphics
I beta tested this game when it was initially released to the public, I downloaded the installer and could _not_ get it to run. I emailed tech support a bunch of times, and they could not help me - finally I found out the .cab files had not even been extracted by the installer. I'm not trusting a company who has spent "15" million dollars and can't even get the installer to work correctly.
Wow..and people were doing drive by shootings and other acts of violence in Japanese internet cafes over EQ. Imagine what it will be like when someone takes items worth $100+ in real money.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Pay real money for something that deteriorates over time? This sounds to much like my Windows PC setup....
in the game can i buy a character that will go, buy a computer, with my real money in his virtual world, then play a stupid game he has to pay for in the game with his 'real' money... that he can pay for his damn self, because ill be dammed if some game character is going to bum a dime off me after i paid for him to exist.
stupid leech characters.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Business Plan:
1) Find a duplication bug.
(duplication bugs allow you to clone items, usually by manipulating how the game saves or moves items)
2) Buy a 20 dollar item.
3) Duplicate it 20 times, for 20*2^20 = 20 million items.
4) Sell it back to the game.
5) Cash out your 20 million and retire.
If I pay for the game software I am entitled to play for free. Blizzard is a prime example of this in action and working..
If I get the software free I am willing to pay to play.
I am not willing to violate rule 1 or 2.
If they expect me to pay for the software and pay to play and pay for stuff in the game they must be totally bonkers.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
We have no money, only degenerated goods
I don't know anything about what this article is discussing or whether anything actually popped up or spyware or whatever. But one day fairly recently I actually took the time to read the coca-karma story and found it to be pretty interesting. So please give it a try; you might find it enjoyable, too.
How appropriate of a name for the planet: Calypso. She put her efforts into distracting Odysseus from his real goal to go home. I don't think this game is going to distract me and keep me from my real life for seven years like Odysseus though.
I'm still waiting for the day Planeshift, a free, open source MMORPG, is gonna be released...
It's not like you can't get things for cash in every OTHER game like this, they're just starting out that way from the onset.
The real question is whether you can buy character skills. Paying real cash for things isn't so bad when characters still need to acquire skills through practice - then you can also acquire things through skills. I.e. maybe I can buy a "Sword of Moderate Death" for $20, but the only way to get a "Sword of Extreme Death" is to find a level 99 Wizard to enchant it - and maybe that Wizard is going to want some cash for his services.
The cash thing just makes this game more of an extension of the real world than a substitute. No more getting spanked by some 12 year old who can play 16 hours a day because you have a real job and they don't - now your real job is worth something in the game.
'Course, me personally, I'd rather get laid.
paintball
if they want this to work like the real world, as far as economy goes at least, tehn we should have financial protection as well.
I want life insurance policies, FDIC insured bank accounts, credit fraud reimbursement, and a living trust, not to mention offshore accounts, holding companies and tax havens.
If this was set in the middle ages or ancient babylonia i'd understand why you could only carry around your wealth to insure it's safety but that's why we developed all these other paradigms, to protect ourselves from bandits, outlaws and thieves. Just cause it's sci-fi doesn't mean it's post apocolyptic! Where's the civilization?
Also how do these things degrade? Can we repair them? or can we just buy Good(TM) stuff that doesn't degrade? I know people who buy cheap stuff and yeah it's pretty much crap before it degrades but it also degrades much much more quickly than most of the stuff I buy, like furniture, clothing, electronics, appliances, etc. Any of the rest of you people out there still have something you bought even five years ago that is in mint condition? ten years..
I do.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I played a MUD when I was in HS/college, and I was arguably the best player in the game, and my clan was definitely the best clan in the game. The game also had an outlaw system similar to this one, and sure enough, everyone in my clan had outlaw flags.
However, we wern't outlaws - we WERE the law. If you were nice, you were treated nice, and if you killed and stole from people, we'd hunt you down. Most people gave us a wide berth, but some would think they could take us on, and they'd get beat down too. The rest wanted to join the group.
Not saying it's not possible the top 10-20 players won't form an outlaw group, but it's also possible that the top 10-20 players form a more benevolent power structure.
paintball
Isn't one of the large advantages of the RPG's out now that you can be anyone you want? If real world classes and poverty extend into the online realm, why would anybody want to take part.
If you are just going to get fragged by the 15 year old who's parents bought him the best gun in the game, why play?
??
"Could this be the way most online games will be played (and paid for) in the future?"
No.
Most gamers would get real tired of having to shell out tons of money just to have a powerful character, and having to put up with little shits with too much money and attitude ruining it for everyone else. The achievement of advancing a character is what makes it so much fun for most people. I mean it's just bits, a non-reality, yet peopel enjoty the accomplishment. Hell D&D really showed this. It was all pen and paper and a story told among friends. You could cheat if you wanted, it's not like you couldn't just write down whatever character you wanted (provided the group was ok with it), the DM could jsut tell a story such that noone was ever in any danger. That's no fun, the risk and advancement of the interactive adventure is the appeal.
If you want a game where you just start out and don't have to worry about that shit, just compete, play Quake, UT or the like. No leveling, no building, just combat. I love games like that for that, but tring to say you ought to just be able to buy your way to the highest levels in an RPG just defeats the purpose.
with a payment scheme like this, they can easily make subtle game economy changes to basically raise the fee for playing. whereas in a monthly fee based game if they up the fee by, say, 150% of what it is, it is quite a bit more noticeable and users will easily drop out or complain.
the idea seems like a good one to people looking to play the game, but it is incredibly sneaky from the other end when you think about it.
for example, they are able advertise being able to play the game for free, what they don't tell you is you can't do anything without buying anything, thus, severely limiting gameplay. to really play the game you need to purchase $10 worth in items that decay within a month, after which point you must buy another $10 worth. they can easily monopolize the market by making themselves the only provider of items in the game. sure you can create your own things but how good is it compared to the store bought equivalent? they don't give such details on the website.
transactions can be really simple, they can make an agreement in the game so clicking a button decrements/increments directly from your credit card instantly. only people who are calculating the money conversions and keeping track of how much they spend will be able to realize the actual cost of playing the game.
i'm not sure i'll play this game for fear of losing my sense of reality and my money along with it.
Can be hard getting a good game of RealLife (tm). Partial destruction of your FAT only to find later all you needed was a FirmWare upgrade is a real pain.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
The whole concept seems contrary to what many gamers go for in MMOGs. Don't players LIKE that advantage in the real world doesn't follow into the game world? Project Entropia allows players to buy into power using real dollars, so I guess it stands to reason that wealthier real world players will acquire more power and wealth in the game. I'm scratching my head wondering how this translates to better gameplay.
Maybe this setup will attract older players with more disposable income?
It really sounds as if the Entropia people saw knuckleheads spending thousands on Ebay to buy Ultima characters and decided to cash in by routing that money into their own pockets. I mean, everything in the game degrades. And who is the only "manufacturer" of new equipment? Hmm.
Besides, the first schmuck who loses a bunch of money on some crappy item will sue the company.
This thing almost sounds like a good way to launder money or move it between shady sources...
"In the new universe, real-world money can be used for virtual-world or real-world transactions (patent pending)."
They're even going to patent real world transactions!
It looks like they will offer insurance, you can transfer your credits back to USD, pk'ers can't steal your credit card in the game. The base exchange rate is 10 eBux = 1 USD.
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
but I miss MUDs, LORD. Especially the old Sojourn , Duris, and Basternae MUDS. Those were the good ol' days. I know those, plus Toril, always yelled and fought, but you miss them when they're gone(or when they turn into big stinking piles of . The world I grew up in is dead.
And I'm still in my 20's. Damn computer world.
This is real world, and i am afraid that if i do not keep getting karma, my existing karma would go down from Excellent to Good and then to.....
What happened to Za Moosey?
A friend of mine works there .. =)
It is like a swedish saying.
"Jag mötte Lassie"
I really HAD another userid
because there's money involved. If the guys in your clan could have gotten maybe $10 or more per day for killing and robbing weaker players, how many of them would still want to be the law? I think that greed is a lot more important than community to people.
RPG == Role Paying Game
Entropy is so cool. You get to choose what your avatar is like, every detail, regardless of what you are in reality. All players are equal, there is no discrimination by nationality, skin colour, religion or gender. It's just that the rich are a little more equal than the poor.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
Imagine that: you have an in-game wallet with money, you can exchange/trade that money with other players, and with your real-life bank account. That'll be a good substitue for PayPal, and the company could even become a sort of Web-Bank !
How much do you wanna bet when they say they're investing 15-million, they mean they're creating $15,000,000 worth of items in-game? =)
$50,000 from Uber Swords of Slaying (500 @ $100 apiece)
$5,000 from Moldy Muffins (5,000 @ $1 each)
etc, etc.
-Berj
From THIS article...
...At the request of Microsoft, Adobe Systems, other members of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and nearly 70 local court officials in Gothenburg, Sweden, swept through MindArk's offices, temporarily shutting down company operations while the bailiffs catalogued every piece of software in the place. ...
/. back in June with a note on my thoughts regarding established big biz hijacking and controling any developing net based economy.
I submitted this to
I wish I saved the rant in ascii and still can't believe it was rejected. (What? I must be new here)
"Hey, you just sold me a so-called magic armor which in fact didn't save my ass at all ! I want my money back, NOW !'
So I guess every has figured out how it works by now, you buy items and then you kill monsters/other people in hopes of finding more valuable items and making a profit. So there will be 2 types of players in this game, the guys who are really good and make a profit, and the suckers, who lose money while supporting who whole thing. Now how long do you think the suckers are going to keep losing money for? Maybe a month if they're stupid, probably less. This thing is basically like a large pyramid scheme, the only way it works is if you keep getting people who are stupider than you to join in at the bottom, and that's not going to happen forever, so eventually it collapses.
To pay every month for an MMOG seems acceptable. To pay real money to improve a virtual life doesn't.
...
...
On the other hand
Many players bought the "Planes of Power" EQ extension just to be able to move quickly in Norrath. (A centralised teleporter system have been added to link cities and is available only to PoP players).
Well, at least the TP system does not decays
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
VAT on "bodyguard services" anyone ?
Read more on this link.
if you buy a virtual Fujitsu harddrive, it'll fail after any 'real use' just like a real one?
Virtual reality has become one step closer to life!
So there will be 2 types of players in this game, the guys who are really good and make a profit, and the suckers, who lose money while supporting who whole thing.
The same concept. Will there be a virtual vegas in the game?
joe
Will this run afoul of any gambling laws? It certainly seems like it could, given that you can get real money back from the game.
:)
Maybe the greek government wasn't overreacting.
Can you imagine what would the Slashdot response be if Microsoft did it? This is much, much worse than their rental licensing models.
Fortunately this game looks really boring. Without player vs player encounters I can't see why anyone would want to invest sums of money to make their character any better.
If you're interested in an almost fully functional online world where PvP and Guild vs Guild competition is the main objective then check out Shadowbane where you can literally change the world.
Open beta will occur in the new year.
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
oh, wait, where is the delicious beef in my mouth? or i should image that by myself and pay you money? i can image that without your game, sir.
i dont see how they are going to get my interest with their server being down. this is the type of thing that kills mushs.
... well then they can easily have my $20 or so a month.
if this is simsonline meets everquest meets grand-theft-auto:vice city
i would love to spawn off another virtual life.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
I think this is an incredible bad idea, the company behind it will be litigated to death.
Crackers will hit this game night and day for new exploits and will make life miserable for the "serious" players and the company trying to run it.
You can also question the game balance, it will probably always be in great favor of the company running the thing. Also, as we know , programs are seldom free from bugs. What happens if properties/items/goods is lost due to a bug ?
What's the motivation for creating a game with real money [actively] involved?, did the producer lack original ideas that would attract players and media attention if it was a "normal" game?
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
Please choose your avatar... will you be Warlock, wizard, magician, theif, lawyer, policeman, taxman...
1 461&pageversion=1
A crime in the virtual world is a crime in the real world too. You steal game credits and you're stealing real money. So the first time you see any crime in this mmorpg report it to the police immediately at: http://www.polisen.se/PSUser/frameset.jsp?nodeid=
I know what I'm gonna do - hack into city bank - transfer as much money as possible to a swiss bank account somewhere - and when they come to arrest me I'll say - oh - I'm sorry - but I thought that citybank was just a mmorpg - and surely this is just a virtual theft - where's the harm in that.
Seriously though - the second you can turn mmorpg income back to real income - you have a lot of very serious ethical questions. If someone steals from me online - do they pay tax on that income or not. If I hack the code to generate income - is that tax deductible, is it a crime? Is a crime in the virtual world not a crime in the real world too?
3D worlds are getting more and more common.
Here is an alternative, you can even create and share your own objects and scripts: Second Life
We've all read the sad stories that emerge out of games such as Everquest and other MMPORGS. Usually the only thing that got people hooked was the social aspect - being someone and having a whole different relationship (including more respect perhaps) with people than they did in real life. It proved psychologically addictive to some, and then follow all the various articles about divorces, suicides and other unwanted news. So with a new layer of immersion to hook people - the financial one - could this not produce even more stories that we want to avoid? Could it hook people in the same way poker machines do, with the possible thrill of financial reward? Take the social addiction and devotion a normal MMPORG can provide, then add the new layer of money worries. I really hope they've got policies to deal with players who show themselves at risk.
So you're postulating it will look like a better version of this flick?
"I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller!"
-- Project Entropia's best player.
How can you use my intestines as a gift? -Actual Hong Kong subtitle.
This is probably going to attract people who hope to be able to make money from the being in the game (we see this in just about all other online games, where they sell items and equipment for real life money) - it may also be a way for nolife nerds to make a living without leaving their sofa!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Could this be the way most online games will be played (and paid for) in the future?
I don't think so. There are other games where the value doesn't regularly degrade but grows instead. They are called online banking.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
Remember the sims? A game where you have to work, pay bills, clean the house, etc etc etc ... people are weird!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Have no fear! CarrionFields Is a MUD that's alive and well. Come play!!!! (it's a kick ass pk/rp mud which is highly regarded on both counts)
"Project Entropia Goes Gold!
Gothenburg, Sweden - December 10, 2002 - Swedish interactive entertainment developer MindArk today announced the virtual universe Project Entropia is going gold on January 30th 2003. Project Entropia is Sweden's largest software project ever, and has been in development since 1997.
Project Entropia is a three-dimensional virtual universe on the Internet accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world.
Project Entropia is an entertainment product aimed for global usage across culture, age and sex barriers. The main focus in the development has been to cater to the features desired by online gamers as well as for users engaged in society and community building - those with an interest in meeting other people for social interaction and adventure. Millions of users will be able to interact in the Project Entropia universe.
Project Entropia introduces unique features like a real economy where its currency, PED, is exchangeable with any major currency in the world. The software needed to enjoy Project Entropia is free to download, and this virtual universe is free to enter and spend time in.
"It is even possible to make a living in Project Entropia," says Chairman Benny Iggland. "This is being demonstrated by several of our commercial trial users. A market economy is rapidly evolving, with our users defining prices on various commodities and items available in the virtual universe. Project Entropia will also incorporate real world commodity trading in a three dimensional environment."
"Some 15 million USD have been invested in the development of Project Entropia to date and we expect to continue developing Project Entropia in the years to come for a sum of at least 5 million USD annually," says Managing Director Jan Welter Timkrans.
Even though the release date has been set for January 30th, 2003, it is possible for anyone who wants a head start to immediately enter the Project Entropia universe after downloading the software at www.project-entropia.com."
-Psyiode
So since no-one's ever heard of this game anyway, and it looks lame, I'm gonna bring up a keyword-related subject.
It's about universes and entropy.
See, a friend and I were wondering, what would the universe be like if the second law of thermodynamics were reverse: entropy didn't increase in a closed-system reaction, but DECREASED.
In any reaction, the potential energy after the reaction is slightly more than before. Instead of sugar dissolving in water, it would cause the water to crystallise.
Blah, blah blah. How would you cook a chicken? Or would you even cook? Maybe you would want to eat something raw or even rotton?
Instead of life being defined as a long battle against entropy against which you eventually lose, and your atoms scatter to the wind, life is a battle against order and chaos which you eventually lose, becoming a crystalline diamond.
Of course, all of this is just rough-draft preliminary rambling. What would the universe really be like? Because I'm sure I got a lot of that dramatically wrong because I've only thought through the ramifications one level deep.
fifth sigma, inc.
Whilst it is possible to profit from this game, I've seen some people do it without putting any money in.
I've been playing for about 6 months since close Beta 3, it is a game where only put in money you can afford to lose. As there is a steep learning curve in the game.
See it as a game that you freely download (Free as in Beer). But instead of a monthly fee you put money in the game.
... is that Entropy is basically "Libertarian Online". Should be popular with /.ers then.
Did anyone try playing PE without any investment? How far did they get?
The concept of real life money being involved in this game is interesting, however, the lack of information concerning how they will protect monies in game and your account information disturbs me. - Below is an excerpt from their FAQ.
18.7 How is my account information protected?
There is a complete security system to take care of this.
18.8 How is account hacking going to be handled?
As you must understand we cannot reveal any details about our security.
This does not inspire me to trust them or their product/service. - Are they using SSL? Something different? What protects the players in game account and real life account? What happens if there is a server hiccup and I get charged twice for an item? Is my account credited? Do I have to prove my case, if so how, what information must I supply. Must I hand over *very* personal information, like Paypal requests in account disputes, if something goes wonky with my account or if I am accused of some wrong doing? I guess players get to email the support/dev persons and pray that they are more forthcoming with information than the FAQ. But since they haven't told you anything already, do you expect them to tell you anything, down the road, when something bad goes down? I feel there are too many questions not already answered when the game is only a month and a half from gold.
I'm sorry but this just seems like playing poker with a professional dealer while blindfolded.
Land of the free?
He says that it would only take one more terrorist attack and public support is assured.
Hmm..reminds me of this
Do they decay based on time, or based on use?
Would someone who hasn't been on for a month wake up nekkid?
Or do you actually have to use that frying pan of head flattening some number of times before it busts?
This would bring a new meaning to the word griefing if you can actually steal items ingame, but not have them classed as a crime in real life!!
That's a darn good question. Please mod the parent up.
Sounds like a great way to launder large amounts of cash. Rocco spends a ton of money in-game from a non-extraditable country, and 'sells' it all to Vinnie's character, who cashes out, happily legal and flush.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
If they make it a possibility to 'win' in the game, make it a bit of a gambling like, restrict the weapons heavily so that you cannot directly get the best weapon, have a lot of unique weapons.
;)
With the 'win' ability i mean you could find some good weapon and sell it for real money or real money trading between players. And also perhaps virtual dice games, roulette etc...
Charge the players very small monthly fee like 1USD and the weapons etc... costs they get revenue from there but if there just would be a chance that good player could gain cash also. that would be need to be very exactly balanced etc... to not increase pkiller count. for example if they'd make it so that both players fighting needs to have pkilling mode turned on and of course it should be hard to both see what kind of character with what powers they have.
This would lead to people taking duels etc... and might create a 'sub-culture' on the game =)
With what i mean a very good player is like top 2% could play actually without fees and few could gain from it, and perhaps so that there could be people getting from quests etc... very good weapons all the time and selling to those players in need of them, thus creating it so that few players could play as their work, and this would in time perhaps make so that NPC merchants etc... would be just for the n00bs as there are player groups where some of them goes hunting weapons etc... and one or two stay's in the cities selling that stuff.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Just a thought, but with the climate of "our society is crumbling, lets blame computer games", we (as computer game players) always had the retort that it wasn't "real" per-se, e.g. noone actually suffers as a result of actions carried out upon/to them in any virtual world.
However, this no longer holds with this game. You steal Etropian money from them, you are taking real hard cash from them. Where does this stand in the eyes of the law? Must you sign a waiver to play? Surely in the excessively litigious world of the US of A, someone is gonna get mauled? Also, the anti computer game lobby now have a real reason to start banning games. Frankly I'm fascinated by the concept, but I don't think I want to go down that road.
IMO there is no longer a stark line drawn between criminality in the real world and the virtual one. It's no longer a moral issue, it's an issue, period. Kids (or adults) who start to f*ck ppl over in this game have a real danger of getting a feel for this "free money" lark and may well bring this behaviour into the real world. No?
- Ois
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
Did you punish one of your own if he stepped out of line? If not you werent the law, but just the syndicate.
just play anything with Windows 98 and you'll get the same effect.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It occurred to me that part of their business plan is to make money by collecting interest on the money players have put into the game.
More questions: Since in-game money is, in effect, real money, couldn't a character set up in-game financial companies (banks, insurance, etc)? If so, wouldn't be these be regulatable by real-world governments (Swedish)?
Read my keyboard review.
I'm sorry, there's no nicer word for this.
Yes, I'm posting in Anal Cunt mode because I don't have a Slashtwat account and would rather not get one if I can help it; I see no point in accumulating karma or even bothering to have my name associated with this, since it's not like I'm going to be running for office and need to have a public record of my statements or whatever. Anyway. The basic idea is stupid alone, for several reasons.
Most gamers are poor. P-O-O-R. They can barely afford the money for their internet connection and their game subscription anyway. They play games to get away from their crap lives; why should they play something that emulates one of the most depressing aspects of it in the worst way? Especially when they can get better things for free?
Hieronymous Coward, signing off.
I can imagine a game where people try very hard to rob you nake at every turn. Just to save money they would have had to spend in-game. Then, after hearing enough whines, the company will start a public service called "Police," but you will have to pool some resources to pay their salary to cover their in-game expense. Imagine what will come next *shudder* lawyer?
This game has a potential to become the most reallistic game ever! *grin*
--- (The signature is intentionally left blank)
this is why i always liked chess. no matter how much money you have or don't have, they only way to win is by intellect, which crosses all racial and financial boundaries. no amount of money or steriods can make you a better chess player. it takes practice and focus. i am sure you can send your kids to "chess" camps or things like that, but for the most part, it's one of the few true level competitions.
Is THAT what that game was about? I thought it was to torment those little guys until they died. Oops...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yes, that's right, the british band KLF once (in the 90's) burnt one million and was filming the event.
Now MMORPG's don't just drain and destroy your social life (such as it may be), but they'll drain and destroy your bank account too!
The probability that someone is watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions.
Thats all I need.
What was your username again? -BOFH
15 Million doesnt get you a /. able web site?
With all the recent articles on video game addiction, this whole concept of mixing video games and gambling sounds a little risky.
Does this not have the potential for people to spend their life savings on this game?
So now, not only can videogames kill you, they can also make you go broke.
When your widow goes to claim your life insurance, they'll find you cashed it in to buy yourself that new house in Project Entropia.
After all, you download the game free of their site and can play for free - you just can't do all that much in the wolr dwithout dropping some cash in (have to buy a gun to hunt, or mining tools to mine, etc). But for free you can at least run around the world and see how things work and how well refined their technology is.
I've played it in "commercial open trial" for a while now off and on, and I've been quite un-impressed. Unless they make some serious balancing improvements in the economy, and overcome some serious technical difficulties they're having, it's gonna flop.
One their biggest design flaws, IMHO, is their attempt to make the client's view of the world simultaneously seamless (no zoning), lagless (client to server), and cheatproof. They've put a priority on cheatproof, as they should with real money involved. A cheatproof client means that you can't send the client any data ahead of time. In Everquest, for example, the client software is told everything in your zone ahead of time, even thigns you can't see yet. Very cheatable, but it improves performance - not as much has to be sent by the server as you walk around. By eliminating pre-caching of cheatable server data, and also going seamless (one huge world instead of broken up "zones" that take a few seconds to move between), the lag is unbearable. Even under good conditions, actions take place seconds after you push a button, mobs pop up in front of you "magically", etc, etc...
Being able to do this sort of "live" data feed between client and server with no predictive pre-caching of cheatable elements really requires the next generation of networking, where every PC in the world is connected to every other by extreme bandwidth with extremely low latency. On the modern net the latency is just too much to have such intimate real-time conversations over such long distances reliably.
11*43+456^2
Endless recursion, friend. There is/was/will not be a Prime Mover, just levels of simulation without end....
I haven't seen anything like this (even without the rip-off economy system). Does anyone know about Linux friendly MMPORG projects?
You sign up, spend real money on imaginary equipment, and the stuff slowly degrades because of use?
If they have a montly subscription fee on top of that and it works, I'd like to congradulate the person who came up with the new way to seperate fools and money.
Kudos to you sir, Kudos
Can ordinary people get attacked and have their stuff taken, or only "Outlaws"? If everyone can be attacked, then this thing is a breeding ground for lawsuits. Let's say you just invested large amounts of money in some nice weapons and armor. Now, some guy comes along and takes all of it from you. You've just suffered real world financial damage. It's lawsuit time. Bear in mind, I'm not saying the lawsuit necessarily has much validity, but simply that it is very, very likely to be filed by the "victim".
What if I trade an object worth $0.19 for an object worth $0.22 (suppose the other guy thought this trade was worth it for some reason). Is this trade subject to capital gains tax?
It seems like throwing "real" money in makes the whole thing a lot more complicated and less fun, since real money implies real rules and laws governing what you can and can't do.
I've been thinking about this since I started playing everyquest around the beginning of 2001.
.....
:) the people who understand that people will pay lots of money to play games)
When I first heard of PE I was very excited to see someone had went ahead with the idea.
I think they did a lot of things wrong though.
If you really want a game like this to work with real money, a few things are necessary in my opinion.
It should be a fun game. You need to keep a player's interest and make them *want* to work hard on upgrading their character.
Each character/player should be considered a long term investment both by the player and by the company running the game.
You must limit the ability of players with big bank accounts being able to buy their way to the top.
My ideas in the area of real life money were fairly simple: charge a monthly fee and convert either half or all of it into ingame useable money. This way everyone has a set income. (the only way to buy yourself to the top would be to have several accounts)
You could still allow a certain amount of money to be withdrawn from the game. (and probably make the player pay a fee like PE does to keep the withdrawls and the costs down)
There are plenty of ways to suck money out of the economy (PE goes extremely overboard with this)
(oh and if anyone wants to get some money to invest... I think the best possible people to pitch this game to would be casino investors
You're sig is a joke right?
Trying to figure out what the point is though...
No Comment.
Exempting those who may be good enough to profit from the purchases/sales options, this might be a good thing for addicts. If you can't *afford* to play the game 24/7, then at least we could see them going out and getting a job.
Of course, they could also end up like heroin addicts, breaking into cars and selling stolen stereos to pay for their "Entropia" addiction. (don't think it could happen, you underestimate how some of these people get sucked in).
I still see hackers/cheaters being a big problem though. EG is constantly modifying things to lock out cheaters. Having a game with real money (and by a lot of what I've heard, lacking good programming in areas as the installer/character-anis suck) would be asking for trouble unless it has a very good method of
a) Securing transactions
b) Preventing cheating
c) Still making the game fun/playable.
Man, this could be some liability if a server crashes and they don't have up to date (to the second) backups available.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
This has probably been mentioned, but... If you're putting down money on a game, and then taking money back at the 'end' of the game, isn't that gambling? When I was 12 years old, I remember going to an arcade in New Hampshire, USA, called "Fun Spot", where you exchanged money for token which you could use to play video games, skeet shoot, stuff like that. They also had a machine where you could pump tokens into in hopes of winning more tokens. I hit the jack pot on that particular token machine, and got the bright idea that I'd exchange my tokens for cash -- i was a smart kid, cash was surely better than some 8 bit crummy games of the day, BUT! You weren't allowed to exchange the tokens back for cash -- cause it's considered gambling! I was bummed. Anyways... I personally have nothing against gambling, but... Uncle Sam isn't so keen on kids gambling (although this is a sweedish game, i assume they're looking for some american customers), think there might be an issue with letting kids play a game where you can put down real cash to win or lose it? And for the sake of discussion -- what will morally conservative types think about a game where you can kill someone and take their -actual- money. Regardless, I think it's a relatively neat idea -- and yes, ground-breaking. But, you won't see me signing up for it. I have a modest budget, and If I lost my wad cause some spoiled brat kid fragged me cause they have the money to spend on the best weapon, i'd be turned off for life, so... I just won't go there.
From the MindArk homepage:
"MindArk AB is a Swedish-based company which co-ordinates and makes possible the development of your new universe. We have a vision, which we are about to translate into reality - and virtuality. This is Project Entropia.
We promote Project Entropia as a "game" - which is true - this is to be able to introduce our vision onto the market. The game users are used to virtual thinking, and accepting new ideas. This is necessary for us to ensure a quick spread of Project Entropia. When the gaming community (being the most discriminating) has been convinced, we shall be able to also convince more regular users to enter the new universe."
They want to create virtual world and economy that they are in charge of. Project Entropia is not a "game", it's only promoted as one. A "game" is only a convenient medium for them to begin the spread of their "universe".
I have very little faith that there will be any gameplay value.
On the plus side, their website said that there is no monthly charge at all to play the game. So we could all join the game and start a virtual nudist colony (no money for clothes!). We could create multiple free accounts and make buildings out of our characters. Or stage annoying protests by blocking the way into banks and shops, with our poor naked avatars. Or form a beggar's guild, and mooch off the rich players!
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
In the screenshot below there is an insurance company in the background.
Screenshot
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
Players don't pay for the software.
They don't pay to play.
They only pay for stuff.
Try reading before posting.
...and run and do quite a few gestures (like 50)...
I don't know when you last checked out the beta but it seems to me that it is improving fairly rapidly... When I read about this project last time it was on slashdot I was spectical - when a friend told me was playing it last week my intital reaction was "Oh, you mean it's not vaporware?"... You can download and play it for free so I gave it a try...
The first time I tried it I had a hard time finding any other players at all and so the game seemed really boring... Finding players to intreact with has not been a problem the last few days though... I'm starting to get more worried that all the land will be claimed and soiled far too soon... And that brings me to another point...
I think the world is really nice - the actuall terrain with plants and stuff that is... I was kind of surprised to find how much I enjoyed just running around an looking at the landscape - clibming a mountain just to get to the top and running through a forrest of strange trees... The terrain is really diverse and there is a great variety in different environments...
Sure, there are some problems - eg the "lag" where your character is yanked around at times - but there is a real feeling that things are changing... Since I installed it last week the install has been approved and a bug I encountered in the avatar creation has been fixed... I don't know if this will really work out in the end but I do feel confident that pretty much all of the problems and objections voiced here on slashdot has been considered...
Eg, about the economy, as I understand it, stealing from other players will be impossible... It probably will be possible to kill players but you get no loot - the inventory stays with the ghost... Currently, the ways to make money in the game that I know of are to either kill "monsters" or to do mining...
Killing monsters seems to be a bit like gambling currently since there is a high randomness to how much you get for a kill... There is a "Hall of Honor" listing of the biggest kills and I think the biggest last time I checked was like 15000 PED - that's 1500$ that you can transfer to your bank account...
What I think of this game in one word: Interesting...
-- No, no -- Not that one!
real life has billions and billions of bugs!
there has to be less in this game.
wait...this isn't an Xbox game is it?
nbfn
Okay the game is called "Project Entropia"
You pay real money for game equipment which DEGRADES.
Sounds about like the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Who the hell would want to play that? I've got disposable income sure, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna walk down the street strewing dollar bills in my wake.
Entropy indeed.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
"Entropia on less than 10 PEDs a day"
1. A lot of people will think this is cool and invest a little of their income in playing it.
2. Some people will realize that if they invest a lot of money in it, they can become virtually unbeatable.
3. In order to continue investing vast amount of money, they become the equivalent of card sharks, using there vast resources and thus better players in order to make money anyway they can.
4. The user experience for those without vast amounts of money declines and most eventually leave.
5. The fact there are no longer as many lower level players means the market and money making opportunities for the higher level players virtually disapear(not to mention the fact more high level players means more competition in making money)
6. Without these money making opportunities and with such a shitty environment for newbies(as a result of so many high level players trying to make money) Most players, both high and low level ones begin to leave. Low level players leave because the game is no longer fun, higher level players leave because the they can no longer make enough money in the game to justify there expeneditures.
7. With the decline of the game, the creators of it and server maintainers can no longer justify the expenditures that keep the game online.
8. The game dies and teh article about its death gets posted on slashdot(twice). Many have fond memories, many have comments about what the game would have been like in soviet russia, and many more just rant on an on about how "if they had only done this...then the game would have still be around."
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Their website doesn't crash Opera. Use a browser, not a criminal's virus delivery system.
When buying expensive goods, you have to take opportunity cost into account. Say you buy some high-quality item and I buy the cheapest one I can find, if I have to buy a new one every 2.5 years and you have to buy a new one every 5 years, yours is not necessarily worth twice as much. Instead, the value of yours is dependent on what else I can do with my extra money. The simplest example is what if I invest it: after 2.5 years what percentage will I have to spend to replace my item? More complex examples are like the first purchase in NES Dragon Warrior: good armour, good weapon, or cheap both? (Now we all know that you should spend all your money on the weapon, because armour is for sissy bourgeois, but you get the idea...)
It really is a good Idea. And you dont have to have money to burn to play. Really you all should consider trying the game before bashing it's concept. I have found the idea fun. It has not sucked money out of me. I have spent $30 USD on the game in 6 months... Thats less then Everquest will cost ya for 6 months. Not to mention I am starting to make money now with skill increases. Just simply by playing and participating in what can be done in the world you find it fun and possibly profitable. The universe is a cool looking place with a new twist to MMORPG. Try it ok folks. Then come bash it!
...without robbing those weaker than yourself?
IE are there crafting skills where you can make an iten from gatherable raw materials and sell it to a NPC shopkeeper?
If the only way to earn cash is robbing newbies then I just don't see the point.
Yeah, you heard me! First post! Yeah!
Check out an AVI of the actual gameplay in action. I must say, the graphics engine looks great, but the art could definitely use some work. For example, the lightning bolt effect looks real, but not correct.
Provided that the cost does not exceed the $10-20/month people pay for Evercrack etc.. then it might just survive.
Those graphics ARE good. I like the clapping at the end.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
If people are are willing to pay for game items with real money in a game they are already paying to play to begin with... then I've got a bridge to sell them! Is this why Microsoft raided them last year? Where they jealous that someone is using their concept before they got a chance to? :)
Man wont hackers be all over this if real cash is involved
I laugh. Dukes so owned you.
/.?
How the hell did my MUD career follow me all the way to
paintball
I said benevolent. Nobody said it was a representative or just law.
You just need a clan smart enough to realize that endlessly slaying the new players isn't in the clan's long-term interest. The idea that the top 10-20 players would be smart enough to enforce some level of protection for newer players isn't totally without merit.
paintball
Age of Insanity, now quite dead (although still running) hack-n-slash Circle2.2 derivative. Small world, ripped off zones, buggy code (at the time), cheating admins, lots of carnage.
paintball
As for "will this be the way of MMOG's in the future?" question, I think it is safe to say NO. The money itself is really less of an issue than is the escape and fantastic suspense of disbelief that is the primary attraction for entertainment like this. Then you have the fact that if it is all like anything then that would be indicative of a super-saturated market in which the first few entrepeneurial (yeah, I know...) folks will retires young after [re]introducing other paradigms. Of course then the leming corporations will blindly follow suite but only after naysaying for a year or two meaning that their "predictions and projections" of the market will internally justify throwing countless millions at a market that they are too stupid and blind to see that they are only one of many doing the same thing (that means that our sheepish friends will be stuck with tremendous losses)
Stockholders will be screwed until the storm calms down and only a few with the greatest coffers remain. That is modern corporate strategy: win by crushing others, not through competition from superior goods and services.
Were you quoting the article or summarizing my post? I'm confused because that's exactly what I said. Or did you reply to the wrong post? :)
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
And what if this is a *really* complex and elaborated scam? I mean, picture this scenario: there's 300k people playing online each one of them with 100 dollas worth of entropia dollars in their virtual wallets. All of the sudden there's a "death squad" maintained by the what's-its-name company. They cannot be killed and they go around stealing the entropy money and cashing it out with several different accounts. There's 30 mi just there. I know, sounds terribly crazy and it is a really long shot, but people can do some pretty weird stuff when it comes down to the mighty buck.
One of the great things about MUDS and such were that they tend to be open, they tend to be free, and they are often even literate. There are plenty of decent and not-so-decent gaming environments where you don't need to pay. Who needs this!
Real Life Graphics brought to you by Penny Arcade
Yay me!
What greed, what arrogance. Hey, let's take the least-desirable aspect of MMORPGs and integrate it into the game so that everyone has to take part in it.
It might not bother me so much if they were actually proposing something new. They aren't; standard MUD fare is all they've got. They've just imposed a pyramid-scheme on it, with themselves at the top. You can get items in the game that are worth "real money", but who are you going to sell them to? The only people that will be motivated to play this game are people who want to make money doing it.
Maybe they should have couched all this in some sort of cult (rather than expecting one to form around it). It would make more sense.
I've been a betatester in Project: Entropia for the last 6 months, and have seen quite a bit of the world. PE's public relations has been relatively poor so far, and their main PR guy, Marco Behrmann is frequently the target of pissed-off players. The game is very laggy, bugs are common, and it is quite difficult for many experianced players to make money. Speaking as a voice of the community, I don't think we expect it to be ready by January. Perhaps by next fall it might be relatively prepared for release, but right now it's simply too laggy and unbalanced. I've been able to make money in-game, but definitely not enough to make a living off of it. Server crashes are common as well as client time-outs. Prices are inflated and everyone is hard-pressed to profit. Ultimately what the game needs is the financial and public backing by a major company such as Microsoft or Sony. In the end, it's sucess relies on it's playability. If it can get a widespread player base, then it can seek alternative financial support, and let everyone profit. Otherwise, it looks like it could find itself in trouble. Time will tell where PE goes, and I'll go with it, but I have difficulty seeing hope.
Could terrorists start trading items/money behind the magic castle then convert it to real money for bombs/guns?
"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of
a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with
computers altogether?"
-- Jehan Shuman
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