Tutorial – how to make a planet || Black Hawk view

Tutorial – how to make a planet

This is my opinion about what one planet partner should do in order to design a planet that will keep a stable player base, keep people there and have a lot of actiaity.

First of all, a planet partner must understand what is it exactly what he is doing. Some of the planet partners just want to design a game that looks cool and has nice graphics. This is an aspect that has some importance, but it is not the most important thing. In Entropia Universe, the most important aspect of the game is Economy.

If you look at any planet, most activity is not on the one that is the most beautiful, has nice mobs and landscape. But the one that has the best economy.

In this post, I will do my best to explain my opinion about how to design a planet that will have a strong economy system from the start.

As it is clear for anyone, main economy is based on the 3 professions that give globals in chat: hunting, mining and crafting. So I will focus on those 3 at first in the order of importance for the economy.

Obviously, the most popular profession is hunting. That will be the last one I will talk about.

The biggest mistake all planet partners have done up until now is that they focused on graphics and the most popular profession in game. But in order to have a strong economy, you need people to trade as much stuff as possible for any or no reason. In order to do that, you need a profession that uses resources generated by the economy and people are willing to consume. So from economic point of view, crafting is by far the most important profession in game.

In order to have a good planet, you need to begin with designing a smart crafting system. So I will start with this.

CRAFTING.

Your goal is to burn each and every resource that is produced in mining, hunting, crafting components or any other profession may be out there that can give something that can be used (sweating, taming, fruit picking, coloring whatever you can think of).

In order to do that you need a plan. Designing the crafting system, will make it easier for you at a later stage to design mining areas and mobs and mob levels, having in mind all the time that what they drop must be used in crafting.

To do that, you need to have BP's that burn all resources. That is important. But another important aspect is to understand how that BP should be and what that a BP should give back. I am aware of the fact that a PP will not have full control over the reciepie of each and every BP in game, but I am convinced you can negotiate with MA in such a way that a good plan can be put in place, much like Arkadia did to promote its crafting plan.

At first, we need to understand why people craft. Understanding why people do what they do is the key to design any economical model.

In my opinion, there are 5 reasons to craft. Ofcourse, all people want to make profit, but the way they want to do it is different. And ofc, all or none of those paths are succesful. Those are just reasons in people mind.

1. The smartest crafters try to create products that they can sell to other players.
2. Some just craft in order to gain skills, so that at a later stage to be able to craft stuff they can sell.
3. Some people craft just to get a big ATH and have one big loot that can make them rich and famous.
4.Farm BP’s that they can sell or use at a later stage.
5. Some people craft what they loot just because they hate selling stuff to tt. That means that there are many people that would do things with no rational reason. Those are many and can not be ignored.


First category of crafters already needs an economy in order to exist. They need to have hunters hat need healing tools, weapons and armors that have some use and people would want to pay markup to use those items. Or to be crafters that would make components other crafters would need. As is obvious, the items they would make shoud sell for some markup. For that reason, what goes in those BP's can use some resources that are rare or dificult to get, so that the crafters would want to pay some markup.

The things that are rare or have markup can be generic components of some kind, crafted components or both. In higher level BP's some of the deeper ores can be used.

However, if all items used in such a BP are things with markup, you need to use also something that is as close to TT food as it can be, so that the one making the item can have a chance to dilute the input markup. So high volume resources also need to be used. Animal oils, skins, components and such are an option.

Crafting has BP's of different levels. It helps to have resource class connect with BP level. For example, level I BP will use a class of minerals, oils and generic components that are common and easy to get. At each level, a new resource is introduced. Higher level BP's can also use lower level resources.

2. Many people just want to get skills. They only want to do as many clicks for as lower TT input. Those people need a serie of BP's that only uses simple recipe of 1 item from one resources and maximum one of another resource. They need things to be nice and easy. They don't expect much back most of the times and they will assume they will have some loses and that is not much they can do about it. But at least they get the skills they want and are happy with that. For this reason, a serie of BP's that is easy to craft needs to be in each BP book, at each level. The resulting item should be and must not be really usable in economy, and the resulting thing - unless is a component - can be sold to TT with confidence, except for residues, ofc. Components of this kind can be used to dilute the markup items in manufacturing usable items.

3. People that just want an ath are common in EU. They usually have a gambling problem and will search an opportunity to spend big and win big. Those people would click any BP that has a high TT input and can drop a big ath. They would usually want to click low - mid level BP's that have a high chance to hit an ath. This is a gold mine for generating markup, because they would pay it. Just look at dynera BP. Ofc, you can't assume that if you make more and more suck BP's the markup on all those resources will go up, because in the beginning, the players are the same all over. You need some player base for that to happen. Those BP's should be common, but not of many types. 1-2, maxymum 3 for each level.

Some of those BP's can be used as spammers by all crafters to try to get new BP's after a new release. So not only gamblers will craft them, but also people who have a clue about what's what and when.

4. The BP farmers will always search the cheapest BP in MU that can be crafted at any level in order to be able to loot limited or unlimited BP's that they can click after or that they can sell. Those people usually have a clue, and will try to use only cheapest resources. Your goal is to have as many of those. For this reason, BP's similar as the skilling BP's should be created. But have in mind that such spammers will want the highest TT/click with lowest markup. Much like Killian sword or EK2600 BP. In fact, any BP with high TT input can become a spammer at the right time. So make sure you have expensive crafts in tt.


5. People that like to craft their own BP's would not have a clue most times about what they are doing, so they would use whatever is common or popular in global chat. But having common bp’s that use most resources helps, and also, some bp’s that use some of the common stuff can stay rare and have lot of markup on the actual bp instead of having the mu on the resulted item or resource. Much like Rely Boots. Some of those rare bp’s can be also good spammers.

An important resource in economy is the residue. For this reason, having a high TT input BP that will craft a low TT item, that will force production of residue – much like enhancers crafting works – is important. After MA changed the OA 101 BP to Level 2 BP it increased the TT of the final product. Since it is a popular gambling BP, the result is that a lot less residue is produced now than it was before. So you should have this in mind. MA will decide the TT of things in your economy, but you can always complain when things are not right.



MINING SYSTEM



Mining system is another important part of the game. Miners are servants of the economy. They have no fun, because it is boring to keep doing it for long periods of time, and the only reason people would do it, is profit. Then again, how to profit in mining is open for debate, as always. Some think you can do it only mining certain resources, some think you can profit only if you hit a big tower. Most will just fail and give up.

However, one fact is clear. Most active miners end up having a clue about what they want to do and will usually want to mine for specific resources. For this reason, it is important to give the opportunity to loot only some ores/enmaters/treasures in some area. And more than that, in such an area, there should be a limited number of all. I will name such an area "field" from now on, because is what most miners use as terminology. I suppose that this is what people in design think as well.

How a field should be

A field must have a limited number of resources, like I said. But as you know, different finders, find different resources. So you can have several resources in one place, but when a miner has skill, it can decide, based on finder and amp, what type of resources he wants to find in that place. I am sure you know how this works, and if you don’t MA sure knows.
How about the size of the field.
When you design a field, you will influence the markup of some resources controlling the size of some fields. So the basic resources that are used in basic high volume BP’s should be in large fields. 2.000.000 square meters or more would be a good size. Someone dropping at 100m distance will be able to fit 2000 drops or more in such a place. I am not saying it is the good number to use, but most people would stay around 100-120m distance between drops, simply because we have no real info about what the real distance should be for optimum results. Those fields should have stuff that should be near TT food most of the time. Since the area is so the probability of people dropping there increases, so the volume of market will stay high. Stuff like lyst, belkar, nexus, sweet stuff and such can fit this profile.

Some other resources you want to have with more markup. The size of such a field should be lower if the resources will not be used in lots of BP’s. But be aware of resources with high volume that are supposed to have some markup, like narc, niks, cobalt, gazz, duru and such, that are suppose to have some markup, but they are used a lot. Since the market needs them so bad, having large fields for those resources may also be a good idea. Maybe not 2M square meters, but 1-1.5 would work for a minimum.
Remember not to mix too many of same of those ores in the same field. People that mine, would usually want to be able to choose and be in control of what they get. Or they would just not mine there. As an example is Arkadia mining system when it launched. All fields were small and Lyst was all over. Lots of miners were there with lots of hopes, but most decided to give up facing the fact that is way too hard too mine such a place. As a result, system changed. But people failed to come back, because exploring for good areas is time consuming and also ped consuming.
Ofc, having some “dirty” fields is important, because this is how you make knowledge count in this game, and this is also important.


Try to avoid having high mountains in the middle of a field. Have inaccessible points mostly at field borders, but don’t make a strong rule out of that.

It may be the case that you want to have some ores with higher markup. Those can have higher markup because they are deep and capped, or because they are in small fields. Having some fields of 10k square meters could be interesting, if you do not abuse this feature. Nothing is worse than have a ton of small fields. If all resources with nice mu are in small fields, you try too hard to regulate markup with field size. You should do that in limited cases only and let market work the magic for the rest. There it is a limited number of miners, so they will never be able to supply all market needs no matter how hard they try. So some markup will exist.




HUNTING


Hunting is the most popular profession in game. That is clear. Designing lots of mobs is important. Do not work too hard on details at first, you can change graphics later. Pay more attention to mob stats and loot table.
First of all, think at what are your goals when you design hunting. I would focus on encouraging people to try to get as many skills to hunt big mobs. I would also try to encourage people to use as high gun as they can, so the economy is dynamic. However, never forget new players. They are the most important part of the game at all times.

So, having this in mind, I would make a generic mob carcass and make a low level mob out of it. Then use that and change textures, scale a bit and make a bigger one with higher stats and add some more mobs in same matter. You only need 5-10 such basic models in order to have 100-200 mobs, just by changing the texture and mob name.

I insist on the fact that mob stats and loot table are way more important than mob look. That can always be fixed later, but bad stats and bad loot table can mess up economy and would make the game just… not fun. Because, in average, most people would lose a lot with no chance to survive.

So, about the stats.

I think all mobs must have some regen on them. That would make people more interested in higher level guns, and also team up. That would make enhancers marker flow, among other things. Also skill market and armor use becomes important, because people would not want to waste time healing when mobs regen.

Now mob levels.

HP of a mob is important. Low level mobs should have lowish HP, but I would make it so none can be killed with less than 10 hits with lowest dps in game. Low level mobs should have lowish damage so that anyone can kill them with no armor.
As the level goes up, mobs should become more hard, by adding more and more HP, and also , more and more output damage, and evade needed for the hunter to fight those mobs. Make sure that you need to have many mobs for noobs, most mobs for mid level players and several choices for ubers and insane people. How to do that is obvious, and if I feel it needs to be detailed, I will do it at a later time.

LOOT TABLE for mobs.

All mobs must have oils of all kind. Oils that drop from most mobs, will be good to be used in the BP’s that you want to use low markup. Oils that drop just from few mobs, should go in BP’s that are supposed to have higher level, or use some markup because is worth it.
All mobs must give some markup. Even the lowest leve, must have some hides, some parts that would go in some tailoring BP’s, and also in texture bp’s. Hides of some kind can also go in armors. Even guns can use them, by claiming that in order to make a handle for a weapon you need some kind of skin. That would make a market for tailoring remanants on the long run.
Mobs should also drop armors, healing tools, weapons and other things that one can try to use or sell. Low level mobs, however, will have the most markup from hides that will be crafted. As the mob lever goes up, the weapons it can drop become more interesting, at higher damage and TT, so those will have some markup. Also, generic components should become part of the loot table. Lowest level mobs should not drop any generics, but instead, beauty profession and paints should be options.
You need to design few mobs that will be the most popular in game. Thos mobs should be one or 2 for each important class. Those will be farming/skilling mobs.

One that is around 200 HP at lowest maturity. It should have low level of regen, but still, some regen. Also, some agro, but not too much. 55m should be fine. Output damage with no armor should be around 25. This mob should be designed with special attention. It should have in loot a resource that is commonly used in low level farming BP. Also some low level paints. The oils should be common. TT food ones. It should in rare occasions drop some L gun that a noob can use. Also, in loot table, rare, it should be ESI and one rare UL item. Shop keeper pad, some armor part that protects 15-20/damage type and maximum 70 in total. That armor should be rare.
One around 1000 HP for lowest maturity. This mob should have more regen. In its loot, advanced components should be present. Also other medium oils. It can have a lot of armor parts that will stay TT. Much like ambu. Such a mob will supply in economy oils, some L weapon, some components and some paints. This would be a medium level skilling mob. ESI should also be part of loot.
A mob with high HP and not too high damage, but some regen that gives lot of oil, some L weapons and some ESI’s would be nice for higher level op players.
Those will be the main mobs in economy, and they need to supply all oils that need to be cheap. Also, other mobs will drop those oils, and hides, and skins and paints. But those mobs will be the base for filling the need in low level crafting bp’s. Rest of the mobs should have the same concept, of generating markup.


One important thing about hunting and mining: Most markup in mining is from normal loots. Most markup in hunting is from special loots. The 200 HP mob will be similar with mining, and the crafting main resource it can be an ore. On Calypso, such a mob is the drone.


This is the basic to start the game. Without this, you should not even think that you can release.

Remember, that you need BP’s that burn ALL resources that drop in both mining and hunting. Not just some. Is hard work, but it can be done.



I will finish with putting the accent on an important aspect of the game.


Graphics and placing stuff
Do not waste people time with stupid shit. Is bad for people and is bad for the game, and in the end is bad for you.

When you go out from TP, make sure you get inside a place with all terminals very fast. Make sure that from one point you can access all terminals so you don’t need to move around like crazy.

Make sure that graphics on TP and most object are simple and will not make people crash. The secret is that most of us don’t care how the TP looks like. Or anything, for that matter. We just care about clear instruction and clean graphics. Do not use effects or complex materials that would kill our graphic cards.

Just think about it. If you have 10k people online in one day, if you make them all waste 1 minute/day with stupid shit instead of hunting, then you would have wasted 600k seconds. I will consider the average dps of those 10k people to be around 40dps. That would result in 24M damage in one day that is not performed because of bad design. If we consider the eco around 3 ( and avg eco is lower) that means 8M peds were not spent in that day. If we consider the fee to MA and PP of 10%, 800k ped/day would be lost by all those people in that time if they would do things instead of wasting time. If 50% of the money will go to PP, than your share would be 40k ped or so. In other words, with bad design you can lose 4k$/day if you don’t pay attention and just make it harder where is no need to make it so. Please remember this fact. Is important.

I am sure after this the community can pitch in and help some more. In a short article, is all I could do. I hope it helps. And I hope we will see more planets that are successful in EU.
If you feel this is helping in any way and want me to be more clear in other aspects, I can do it. If you think I am just full of shit, sorry for wasting your time…. But if you were patient to read it all and not like it, you must be really bored. Have fun.

 

I have no clue where this thread should be, so I posted this here. If you feel is for another section, please move it and delete second post. It is posted here after posting it on another forum also while I was away from town. Was planned to be posted on all general forums, so here it is.
Have fun.

 

What you say sounds nice. If it would work out, I would be the happiest in game. However, you are missing an important aspect.
PP does not control loot system. It can only have an impact in global economy by strategic decisions.
Implementing systems like those you describe would be great. However, those systems would not guarantee that participants will be able to fit all that in 15$/month budget. And the trading would become again important and trading will become a factor.

Even more, in all my post I try to describe the necessity of building an ecosystem. Stuff should have meaning. It may be part of a story line or not, but it should have logic meaning. Story line would be a plus. Extra reasons to play would be a plus.

In my opinion, a PP that fails to design an economic system in EU, will fail in any other aspect in a short time, simply because building a good economy system (NOT ECONOMY because people build economy) is a lot easier than creating a complex fun game.

The priority is to make things work. The next step is to make them work better. Simply because designing such a system is a living process and it will never be perfect. It will always be place for improvements.

All the system you describe can come on top of good economy. good economy is not clear it will result just from having those systems. Trading good economy for pure hope of people having fun may prove to be a huge risk. I would not take it.

 

Tass has a good point, like I said. In the end, this is the goal. On Planet Calypso, such systems that are fun oriented used to be part of the game, and to some extent, they still are part of the life. They all have in common the fact that they come on top of the economy, and not replace the economy.

Event, beacon missions, quests - the way they are, pvp, all those are on top of what is the base economy, and the important aspect of those things is that they have a positive effect on the economy.

Since all planets will be focused on the same income model, I would say it would help if all are aware of the fact that one would play more if it has reasons to stay more in game, and first reason is economic. All other reasons are good. However, the PP will gain nothing from people that join to run around and look at the sky. The model of this game is to cost around 1$/hour. That is expensive. The model is made by MA, not by PP. PP must be ready to design an expensive game and make players enjoy it and not feel they lose that much. The only way they can do that is by having strong economy, so that players would loot a lot of markup. You would not care if you loose 10k ped on a random event if you loot 1 full TT ESI and a shadow part or something like that. The one who pays the markup on those things, will be happy to benefit from having them and will not count purchasing that as a loss. And at his time, he can loot other crap to sell. The secret is to keep the cycle alive.

If you focus on content and your economy just sucks, one who gets 10k ped loss over time will have 10k ped loss and no chance to recover it with normal in game means. Result is frustration and lack of activity when people will see how expensive the game actually is.

 

Don't get me wrong. Content is a must. Without content and fun things to do, game will die no matter how well designed is your economy system. I am aware of that. Anyone can point this out and be right about it. But an economic system will generate entropy. People will do stuff without having the best content. When all events are over. When all quests are done. When all wars are won. Or lost. One would need a reason not to quit. People stayed for years in EU. Not because the events were good. Not because the mobs are nice or loot is great. They were not even around for so long for the story or content. But because of the fact that an avatar is not an worthless piece of shit most of the time, if you ever did something other than sweating of fruit picking. That makes personal goals emerge. Personal quest be generated. Drama of things you want to do and do or fail. And all that comes from how economy works. From having a value attached to all you have in game. No matter how big and small.

Most people after they quit most games out there, they never go back. In EU, people come back after years of break. You think is for content or events?

I wish I could make a planet myself. I am convinced I could keep more players on my planet than anyone expects just by implementing some simple things. Too bad I can't put that much cash into such a project.

 

It is true. It is not much you can change. But it is important that you understand what is already there. IMO a PP should know all about each square meter of his planet. All resources in mining fields where they are. All mob spawns and maturity. All loot tables. All BP's and loot tables in BP's.
And since they do put cash on the table, they can ask for changes about what goes where and when. MA can decide how much, ofc.

 

Skills are an important part of the economy. And they are really important. By having them, there are things you can do now you could not do when you had fewer skills. So it is a personal value in that. Having more of anything will expand your options in some areas that may or may not be important for you. Even if you don't appreciate those new paths, those paths are there. For example, when you will get commando, short after, you will get like 10 extra HP in short time. You will notice that mobs that were a bit too hard, will become easy. You do not die on crits. You do not waste time with driving back or teleporting back, as you used to. You will be able to participate in events where you used to die in 1 hit. Now you can take 2 or more hits because you can heal or have someone help you. So skills have a huge impact, even if it is tempting to ignore them. It is true, people with no skill could get better loots on stronger mobs every now and then. However, you have new things to explore, and for them to do the same is harder and a lot more frustrating. Not to mention the fact that the more skill you have, the bigger weapon you can use, or tool, or BP. That will be something. If it means nothing for you at some point, you can always sell the extra skills and use the peds, if they have more value for you.

 

We are going off topic already, but I would like to point out on one thing you already said, but then again, you ignore it.
Skills do matter. Skills do help. They do not help in the way you want them to help. You will not get better loot from having more skills. But you will be able to play at a different level.
Having that much crafting skill will allow you to craft BP's only few people can in this game. You could craft XT, VRX3k or such high level things and you can make profit from that markup. Someone with no skill could never do that. So you have the advantage. You will get the same TT as any other crafter in game. But if you focus on stuff you can sell, you have a clear advantage.

So in a way, unlocking skills will allow you to go in an area where people with lower skill level can never go. Or if they do, they fail miserably. Have a noob craft XT and then you try few clicks. Compare results.