Year of our lord 2013 – December 10th The End was foretold and so it came to pass. Mountains, Valleys’ and Seas Swallowed whole. The Werewolves took Shelter in the last remaining Forest East of BAMF HQ The Demon Spawn all rushed back to Hell whence they Came. Older Dragons followed the Demon Spawn fearing for their Kind, taking refuge in the peaks of the fiery pits. Younger Dragons flocked together, too afraid to follow their elders too Hell, perhaps never to see the Sun Rise again. The Vampires carried with them and rebuilt their beloved Cathedral brick by brick. The Motorhead Security rebuilt Lemmy’s Castle high up out of the reach of the Dark Lord ready to defend their beer Garden to the last. The Motorhead Royalty carved out a new Stadium from Rock where they can freely Raise their Fists in Rebellion! Hell Froze over finally and The Alien THING shape-shifted among the Wolves cursing the Oil Rig Freeloaders for Eternity. The Arctic is all but lost, perhaps a few extra days will be afforded to the brave souls wishing to say their last farewells… The City of Dreams, New Harlem and Tangerine were Saved from the destruction by sheer will; the last refuge for Pop culture and Pop Dragons in an increasingly Antiseptic Universe. But the Living Dead hunger for the Living and they may not be containable in Zomhattan for too long. Champions of ROCKtropia must hold back the Hoardes from entering the City of Dreams and fight for their decadent brothers and sisters who love to live a carefree life… The Wolves are back in Wet Wolf Creek carrying Death and Vinyl for those who will Grind hard for the Future of the ROCKtropia Economy. Noobs are Well advised to divide their labor between the Shy Vixens and Young Scavenger Wolves, a pretty penny for their Dreams. The ROCKtropian Government has Shut down all municipal buildings and Studios to join the citizens in the fight for survival and Liberty. Word is that the collapsed ROCKtropia Planet which has lost so much beauty and expanse is at least now Self Sustaining able to cover the cost of its Footprint in the Entropia Universe and not in jepordy of being enslaved by the Dark Side of the God Mind. So long as the Champions of the ROCK Keep the hunting levels consistant, then The Dark Mind Profits while the Rebels suffer, but retain their freedom and dignity. And NEVERDIE salutes his friends and winks at his enemies as he returns to the gritty streets of Hollywood to seek the glory that has that slipped from his grasp in the virtual realms… The following Transcript was discovered in an abandoned Studio on Strip Search Blvd FIXES NGL Rocket launcher can now be traded to TT Some instance Gates may have been fixed. tread carefully. Much junk removed from Loot Lists per the Hunters requests. Creature Spawns re-organized around City of Dreams. Mineral Resources shifted from the Mountains to Hell Shared Mobs Spawns Culled. Rumors of new Rewards for hunters and Warm clothes for the Colder reaches of Hell. And Finally………….. One more thing? perhaps? or is that it? Source
Will be interesting to see what is shared by those who spend time on RT and how it has changed. I hope this move will make a positive difference.
I like the way NEVERDIE presented this, using lore to announce what most likely was not an easy decision. It also seems to confirm what many of us figured the Apocalypse would be all about; shutting down some of the servers in order to end up having to pay less to MindArk in server fees to keep the planet from financially draining the ND Studios company. Not sure many know, but the 50% split of the revenue is far from the only way MA gets money from the PPs. There's all kinds of additional costs, which includes fees for the servers a PP is using. That might also be why the new approach is about single-server "moons".
PPs also pay a fee on support tickets, which also add to what they have to cough up to MA. I like the way ND announced this VU as well, and hope it will make things less taxing for him.
ah man.... I hadn't picked up that this was what it meant but yeh my interpretation of: "Word is that the collapsed ROCKtropia Planet which has lost so much beauty and expanse is at least now Self Sustaining able to cover the cost of its Footprint in the Entropia Universe and not in jepordy of being enslaved by the Dark Side of the God Mind. So long as the Champions of the ROCK Keep the hunting levels consistant, then The Dark Mind Profits while the Rebels suffer, but retain their freedom and dignity. And NEVERDIE salutes his friends and winks at his enemies as he returns to the gritty streets of Hollywood to seek the glory that has that slipped from his grasp in the virtual realms…" is: "I've had to squish the planet into less server areas to keep outgoings down, essentially down size the planet and try and keep things running as a smaller operation. Personally I'm going back to hollywood to persue my dreams as it looks like my hopes for a planet in entropia have almost gone" I wish someone had tipped me a wink on this one though if you all knew. Would have liked to have had one last look at the place. I had thought maybe the apocalypse was one last big event and marketing effort before mothballing the planet like Next Island was. So... who is paying for Next Island's server squares then? It sounds like essentially RT was in danger of repossession (or maybe just posession) so to speak by MA. Rather than do that ND has downsized and kept a handle on it. An interesting choice but it says a lot about the guy and his passion for the place that honestly no one could ever fault (although people tried). I guess this ALSO explains Cyrene still being only a few server squares (I'm guessing, not looked at the map for a while). Its all about keeping the costs down and not diluting the existing community around too much. It also explains the "but I've got a thousand glaciers poised and ready to roll over africa" comments from the Cyrene camp (actually they said: "we've got loads of content ready to go but have not released it yet" but its more fun to quote Slartibartfast). Sad times... ah well. I hope there is some fun stuff still left to play with on RT. What would be good would be if ND had actually been able to sort of redesign existing areas to be more compact but still having small versions (or the most iconic parts) of some of the previous content. I think that may have been too much work though (and there may have been a time limit) so suspect we will just see large areas chopped out, mob spawns moved and maybe a few assets plonked in new locations. I hope it isn't too messy... may pop over and take a look. I liked RT. Wistrel
Maybe true, but if they stay so small area and no hard launch how will more people join and play there. If not many players play how will they do hard launch. The reason I don't go there is exactly the small area and the fear I won't find enought stuff to do.
Which is the REAL sleazy part of the PP contract. A big chunk of the issues is *generated* by MA. Yet, the PPs have to pay for their players submitting support tickets about them. This could explain why there is no FAQ, or something like "is your issue similar to any on this list of 'hot' topics headed to support right now?". After all, while that would increase transparency (OH HORROR!) and reduce load on the support staff, it'd mean a reduction in billable stuff to the PP, meaning MA has to pay out more. At the same time, it also explains why bugs that cost players money are so slowly tackled; MA makes income from the players AND the PPs at the same time. If I were more of a conspiracy loon, I'd actually start thinking MA has every reason to pretty much screw up every release. It's a plain cash cow for them.
Well, since they've repaired the Micro Skirts I am up to own a black coloured one. It'll take some time to collect this 600+ pigment enhancers ;-) So I can relax a bit and have a look for the new RT. Hopefully they saved this beautiful leather armchairs. I asked ND several times to make them craftable. But it seems he was busy with other issues ;-)
Hmm... pps pay for support tickets, eh?... Wonder if you can get banned for creating too many tickets?!?
