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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
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
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.
And the fact that the game is actually free to play (you don't have to purchase the currency to play) makes it prone to some serious abuse.
IMHO, MMORPGs without a subscription fee are always doomed to fail (anyone remember "graal"?) because some people won't take the game/account seriously ("hey, I don't pay for it, why shouldn't I be a damn lamer?")
"The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
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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.
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.
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?
That almost sounds like the movie "The Thirteeth Floor", a great movie which got put into the B-movie category because it came out in the same year as a movie with much the same theme, and more money. The Thirteenth Floor tells us that humans created a virtual world - a 'simulation' - only to find out that they were simply characters in a simulation themselves. Or, if you follow, this particular simulation that humans of the future indulge in trips into, was the first to actually develop simulation technology themselves.
That's a scary thought. As soon as we can simulate life (any life) completely, we have no way of proving we are not a simulation being run by a higher life form.
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.
If it's a pyramid system (which I'm not sure), then it will be forbidden in many country (Mine at least).
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
True. After all, they're only mentioned three times on idg.se, and only one of those is for ComputerSweden. On the other hand, think about it. Are they releasing new products and technologies almost every day? Is their primary customer base the "IT companies", or big corporation that might invest heavily in a brand new Project Entropia IT-Infrastructure?
No, their primary focus is on gamers, hence the relatively low coverage in magazines that are about technology and consulting, and the relatively high coverage in publications that are about... (suspense) g@Mi/|/G!!!!1
As for the $15M, doesn't sound too unrealistic. Considering that they employ 70 people today, assume 50 people average. Salary, say $30k average, which would cost the company about $45k per employee due to our nifty Swedish tax laws (Not only does employees have to pay taxes, companies have to pay employer-fees as well). Now, multiply that with the 3 years that I know for sure that the company has existed (earliest mention of them was June 1999). That's about $6.75M in just salaries alone. Now, add office rental, equipment, internet access, electricity etc. Suddenly, the $15M doesn't sound too unrealistic anymore, now does it? =)
I admit though, I too doubt that they'll ever make a profit, but who knows. The market has surprised me before.
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
I bought my car and I buy my fuel.
I bought my phone and I buy my calls.
I bought my racket and I pay for court time.
Bonkers?
I have a hard time seeing what you had going as anywhere near benevolent. Dictators work the same way. As long as there is no threat to them losing control of the power structure, they are nice and happy... but as soon as something happens which illegitimizes their power, they need revenge in order to reestablish it. You were a Warlord, or a Godfather... but not the law. Did you have courts? Or did you just try and convict on your own knowledge alone? Just because you allowed the rest of the world to exist as long as they were "nice" doesn't make you just.
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
You hit the nail on the head there. That's why I never pay for my online gaming, and I avoid 99% of the lamers. Try playing a MUD. The vast majority of MUDs are free, including Adventures Unlimited, my MUD of choice. They're at least equally addictive, if not more so, than EverQuest and the like. The only real differences are:
To me the choice is clear and simple.
Hey, and if you stop by AU, tell them Kadagan sent you!
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
It remains to be seen if you can build a world for addicts, with no gain but "make money".
You are joking, right? Just look out the window.
-Kraft
Live and let live
Did you punish one of your own if he stepped out of line? If not you werent the law, but just the syndicate.
He also probably imagines that a beta version of the game probably has things like the character animations correct already. Do you, in all of your condescending brilliance, believe that they need to do all of their graphics coding in the one month they have left before it ships?
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.
So who is to say that some one or group won't take on the in-game occupation of Bounty Hunter? If you could enter into some binding agreement, perhaps with an in-game escrow, It could be a fruitful business.
1. Hunt a perpetrator of a crime down
2. Kill repeatedly
3. Loot their bodies
4. Give desired item to employer
5. Collect fee from escrow
6. Profit!