A sceptics view on Next Island

When next island launched, I did not feel the need to go and visit it and from the stories I heard from other people (specifically the bugs and missing content), I was pretty happy I did not go there. One other thing that kept me from going was the NEVERDIE stuff that was there. For me there was enough NEVERDIE stuff on all the other planets and I did not need to see any more on Next Island.

Time passed, Arkadia launched and I went there to explore and ended up staying. More time passed and we got word that NEVERDIE was going to stop developing Next Island (but no word about what this means for NEVERDIE Island on NI) and that Next Island was going to be developed by themselves. At first I was happy about that because all the crap that was going on at Next Island (from hearsay of course), but things did not become much better and development kind of seemed to come to a halt. The next few months slowly gave us some updates for Next Island and it seems that bugs got sorted and things slowly started to get better. This was also seen in the number of auction pages Next Island was having during that time, slowly increasing from about 8 to around 45.

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Recently, we found out that Next Island got a new investor and gained additional funding to develop the planet, so things seem to be improving there.

Still, I did not feel like going there.

Then, while doing some work on our wiki, I noticed that there was little info about Next Island in there, and I started asking myself if I should not go there to gather data, so I talked to my friend Nutrageti and he agreed to fly me to Next Island with his Mothership service. There was a little trouble there so we got in his Quad, and off we went. Just off the planet we ran in to Stagger who shot us down and I died for the first time in space (which was fun). We revived, flew back up again and got shot down by Stagger once more (which was a bit less fun). Third time’s the charm and we got off the planet this time on our way to Next Island.

After a while, I realized I did not have the content for Next Island downloaded, but thanks to the new internet connection I got that week, that was done in no time and then I set foot on Next Island for the first time.

When I arrived at Crystal Center, I immediately noticed that the planet looked bright and sunny; something that felt different than the other planets. I stumbled around the place a bit, found the mission givers and talked to them, did a few missions and got some free stuff.

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While walking around and exploring the surroundings of Crystal Center I keep being amazed about how good this planet looks. There are beautiful beaches and very nice views, the water is very clear and the forests look and feel like actual forests (unlike some of the other planets), so the visuals are at least a thing I love about this planet.

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Around Crystal Palace I came across some Papoo wave spaws that I could do on my own pretty easily and that gave me a reason to kill a few (also had a few "kill 250 Papoo missions"), leading to obtaining my first time Travel Crystals from a Red Papoo King.

After doing a few hunts I looked at my inventory and noticed about a gazillion new items in there; all sorts of crystals and heads, feet, tails and, of course, the usual shared items.

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As I said, I had looted some Time Travel Chrystals from a Red Papoo King and figured I might as well use them to go to Ancient Greece, so I did some missions, talked to some people about what to bring, and off I went to Orpheus' Cave. Before I knew it I was in Ancient Greece. This place looks equally impressive, but as I later found out, it was also very desolate; even more so than Next Island itself.

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I walked around Ancient Greece for a few days, and had a blast, because it made me feel like the old Project Entropia days where we had to do everything on foot. I liked that a lot and still miss it from time to time; running around with a few newbies trying to get to the next TP dying about 100 times before we finally managed to get there. Anyway, I explored the place in a few days, loved the look, but really missed any action.

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Back on Next Island, I finally got myself to visit NEVERDIE Island, which I avoided so far because of all the NEVERDIE everywhere, but I picked myself up and went there.

Close to the main island I came across some sharks that I wanted to scan so I landed my V-tol on a little nearby island so I could swim back. I never got around to the scanning, because on the little island there was a cave. Ever since I started PE on Calypso I wanted there to be more caves, so I needed to enter it, of course. I explored the cave system a bit which then filled up with water, so I needed to swim depeer in, got lost and eventually found this:

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I was pleasantly surprised by this, because stuff like this is what I REALLY missed after VU10. The nice, unexpected and useless things on the planet (old-timers will remember the 'I dance for PED' skeleton) and the people of Next Island have put stuff like that on their planet. Thank you for that !

After I got out of the cave eventually, I went up to that sharks, but was killed before I could scan one and thus ended up at Club NEVERDIE. As I said before I do not like the NEVERDIE branding everywhere, but this place looks really great. It really feels like a tropical paradise and it is not as clean and sterile like some planets cities and villages are. I am now exploring NEVERDIE Island some more and like what I see so far.

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Conclusion
Next Island and Ancient Greece look very beautiful and you really get the feeling of being on a tropical paradise or in Ancient Greece. The big problem for Next Island right now is content. Yes, there are weapons, armour, tools, blueprints and a lot of planet-specific loot, but it is not nearly enough to get the economy going. We do get new content with each update and things are really going in the right direction, but slowly. Let's hope that with the new investment Next Island got a while back the planet will get the player base and economy it really deserves.

So, for everyone that has not been here yet, I recommend that you go and visit it sometime for a nice holiday on a tropical island. If you had enough of all the futuristic stuff on Calypso and Arkadia, and do not like heavy metal and guitars than Next Island might be a new home for you.

For now Next Island is not 'home' for me, but after being here I will definitely keep an even closer eye on it and will be back for sure in the future to see what they are up to.

pros

• Beautiful planet.
• Some nice beginners missions.
• Ancient Greece feels like the old Project Entropia (without all those vehicles and the walking).
• Ancient Greece really is something different than the other planets because of the item restrictions.

cons

• Not a really working economy yet.
• Not too many people yet.
• Too many Papoo ;)

Author: RAZER

All views expressed in the article are the authors' own views, and they do not reflect the opinion or views of EntropiaPlanets.com as a whole.

 

Am at work now, so out of the top of my head. Next Island has 5 servers and Ancient Greece 1.

I know ND did a lot of good for the game and his studio did a nice job on ROCKtropia (even though it is not my sort of place) and Next Island. The problem I have is that he puts his name on everythin he makes. Thats Ok for RT as it is his planet, but a bit overkill for Next Island to be honest

 

I don't think Jon and David would like that ;)