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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
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
Will PK & loots be treated as real murder & robbery?
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...
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.
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
In game you have a vitual wallet. You are able to make transfers to and fom your real bank account at any time. So if you earn money in the game you are earning money in real life too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Read more on this link.
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?
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
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 bought Windows and I've been paying for it ever since.
But why is the rum gone?
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!
5.6? damn, that is what i have been doing wrong.
If the rate is $1 = PED10 then how is stealing 1000PED off someone in the game any different from mugging them and stealing $100 from them in real life?
Seems like this is blurring the fine line between the virtual "world" and the real world a little too much.
just play anything with Windows 98 and you'll get the same effect.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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?
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.